In the

telecommunications industry The telecommunications industry within the sector of information and communication technology comprises all telecommunication/ telephone companies and Internet service providers, and plays a crucial role in the evolution of mobile communications ...

, a multi-source agreement (MSA) is an agreement among multiple

manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or Production (economics), production of goods with the help of equipment, Work (human activity), labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary se ...

s to make products which are compatible across vendors, acting as

de facto standard A ''de facto'' standard is a custom or convention that is commonly used even though its use is not required. is a Latin phrase (literally " of fact"), here meaning "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, ...

s, establishing a competitive market for interoperable products. Products that adhere to multi-source agreements (MSAs) include: optical transceivers, such as the SFP, SFP+, XENPAK,

QSFP file:SFP board 2.jpg, Small Form-factor Pluggable connected to a pair of fiber-optic cables Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) is a compact, hot-pluggable network interface module format used for both telecommunication and data communications a ...

, XFP, CFP etc.; fiber optic cables; and other networking devices. MSAs strictly define the operating characteristics of these network devices so that system vendors may implement ports in their devices (e.g. Ethernet switches and routers) that allow MSA compliant devices produced by name brands, as well as third party vendors, to function properly.

References

Standards Agreements {{compu-network-stub