Top telecommunications operators BT, Orange and Verizon have already welcomed yesterday’s announcement of the union between the Broadband Forum and the IP/MPLS Forum.   The news, which will see a “new” Broadband Forum emerge, was announced in Valencia, Spain, yesterday, where the two organisations came together for the first time. This consolidation in the standards and specifications community creates a Broadband Forum with more than 200 members, comprising service providers, vendors, chip manufacturers and regulatory bodies from across the world.   Kevin Foster, Head of Wireline Access at BT, said: “This union means we will all benefit from a greater end-to-end approach for network and protocol standardisation, and that includes end-to-end performance, interoperability, architecture and protocols. It is good news for the industry”.   His views were echoed in the United States, where Verizon’s Stu Elby, Vice President of Network Architecture, said that Verizon had been an active member of both organisations and applauded the move.