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5Gbps Ethernet Base-T standard, hardware coming soon
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    BEAVERTON, OR, SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 – The Ethernet Alliance, a global consortium dedicated to the continued success and advancement of Ethernet technologies, today hailed the ratification of IEEE 802.3bz™, Standard for Ethernet Amendment: Media Access Control Parameters, Physical Layers and Management Parameters for 2.5 Gb/s and 5 Gb/s Operation. Enabling access layer bandwidth to evolve incrementally beyond 1 Gigabit per second (Gb/s), the new standard will help address emerging needs in a variety of settings and applications, including enterprise, wireless networks, and more.“

    "Now, the 1000BASE-T uplink from the wireless to wired network is no longer sufficient, and users are searching for ways to tap into higher data rates without having to overhaul the 70 billion meters of Cat5e / Cat6 wiring already sold,” said David Chalupsky, board of directors, Ethernet Alliance; and principal engineer, Intel Corporation. “IEEE 802.3bz is an elegant solution that not only addresses the demand for faster access to rapidly rising data volumes, but also capitalizes on previous infrastructure investments, thereby extending their life and maximizing value.”

    The standard, which was fast-tracked for development and completed in less than two years from its initial call-for-interest, specifies Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) parameters, physical layer specifications (PHYs), and management objects for the balanced twisted pair transmission media found in structured cabling. Facilitating up to five times the speed without requiring expensive infrastructure changes, IEEE 802.3bz enables easy, cost-effective scaling of network bandwidth. This innovative enterprise technology addresses an array of needs, including scientific and research computing, content production and editing, industrial design and automation, machine vision, and more.

    http://www.ethernetalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/EA_IEEE802bz_FINAL_26Sep16.pdf

    Cheaper version of 10GBASE-T for consumers.

  • 5 Replies sorted by
  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    I'm so excited for this - 10g switches continue to refuse to come down in price in any sort of meaningful way (and most, if not all, have really noisy fans). 5gbps that can use my existing cat5e network will be incredible and prevent me having to use proxies or make local copies of high-bandwidth video files. I can't wait until products start shipping. I was getting pretty close to just buying a used infiniband switch and running separate links to the computers that need higher-speed access to my NAS.

  • karlkarl

    Actually, those NGBase-T network interface cards consist of the very same hardware components as 10GBase-T NICs. Any reduction in price would be purely a result of different market segmentation politics and targeting a new user audience.

    I appreciate that NGBase-T allows to sacrifice some speed for transfers over rotten old cabling infrastructure. But having personally verified that I can run 10Gbase-T at full speed without transmission errors over 50 meters of Cat 5e cabling, I'd say the number of cases where you actually benefit from the less-than-10G-modes will be rather small.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @karl

    I think you don't get an idea.

    It is thing made for consumers/small offices and corresponding products. They tested things up and while with good brand cable and all other things good you can be ok many people don't have it all. And they lack any skills in all this.

    Now you can not find much 10GBASE-T consumer routers.

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    @karl If the price per port on the switches is <$100 or if 5GbaseT switches drive the price down on existing 10GBaseT switches, it'll be a win. The price difference at present between 1G switches and 10G switches is still pretty ludicrous. If they're thinking of 5GBaseT as a "consumer" technology and decent/quiet (ideally fanless) switches are available at more like $30/port, it'll be a winner for my uses.

  • karlkarl

    @eatstoomuchjam: The "price per port" of 10Gbase-T switches is already at 77 Euro per port including 19% VAT, which is also significantly below 100 USD. (Disclosure: I operate a different 8 x 10GbaseT switch that I payed ~ 700 Euros for.)

    Whether or not fanless switches will be offered will not depend on 10G vs. 5G, as both use the same chipsets / PHYs and need to drive the same amount of current through the cables. The 5GBit/s mode just trades in robustness for throughput when (computationally) en/decoding the signal.

    But yes, if that additional robustness/throughput compromise option enlarges the customer base, and if that leads to larger quantities sold, and that to lower prices, I'm all fine with it.

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