The initialization status of the MAC and PLS (Physical Layer Signalling) subsystems for a particular interface. The value initialized(1) signifies that the subsystems for a particular interface have been previously initialized; the value uninitialized(2) signifies that they have not been previously initialized.

Each alteration of an instance of this object to either of the values initialized(1) or uninitialized(2) is analogous to an invocation of the initializeMAC action defined in [9] and has the effect of (re-)initializing the MAC and PLS subsystems for the associated interface. In particular,

all management counters pertaining to the MAC and PLS subsystems for said interface are reset to zero;

the receive and transmit layer management state variables (receiveEnabled and transmitEnabled in [9]) are set to enable reception and transmission of frames;

the promiscuous receive function is disabled; and

multicast reception is disabled.