The Nbase-t alliance passed two new IEEE approved standards, the new IEEE 802.3bz is going to support 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet speeds over the large installed base of twisted pair copper cabling. That means your current CAT5 or CAT6 LAN cable is going to be able to pass 5x more data compared to your 1 Gbit/s jack.
According to the specs cate5e cables with a length up-to 100 meters will support 2.5 Gbit/s and if you have a really good cable even 5 Gbit/s. All CAT6 cables will be able to push 5 Gbit/s (up-to at least 100 meters).
The new standard offers seamless upgrade of older 1000BASE-T networks—a technology that was introduced nearly 20 years ago—and boosts the speed of many Ethernet networks up to five times with no changes to the cabling infrastructure. Final approval of the standard took place during the IEEE-SA Standards Board meeting held last week.
Established in October 2014, the NBASE-T Alliance has provided an open forum for building consensus around the development of the technology and the standard, and has helped members create specifications to facilitate product development. The NBASE-T specifications are consistent with the baselines adopted for the new IEEE 802.3bz standard and have resulted in the deployment of a variety of products ranging from chips and switches to cabling solutions, test equipment and more. As a result, the alliance has enabled an extensive ecosystem of products and rapid proliferation of the technology in advance of standards approval. Products developed using the NBASE-T specification are expected to be compatible with the IEEE standard via minor software upgrades.
“From proposal to approval, the standards process took less than two years—a remarkably fast progression,” said Peter Jones, chairman, NBASE-T Alliance. “Seeing the standard approved so quickly has been an enormously satisfying experience, and shows what can be achieved when we work together to develop a compelling solution that offers clear value to the industry.”
“With rapid approval of the standard and more than one million PHY ports already shipped, there is clear industry momentum behind 2.5G and 5GBASE-T Ethernet,” said Kamal Dalmia, president, NBASE-T Alliance.
Large and Growing Market for NBASE-T Solutions
The applications for NBASE-T solutions are vast and growing. Enterprise, small medium business, industrial and home networks can take advantage of this technology to enable higher capacity wireless access points and faster downloads to client systems such as medical imaging systems that work with large data files, upgraded industrial and home networks. NBASE-T products give users the ability to dramatically increase bandwidth without having to consider the costly, and in some cases impractical, proposition of ripping and replacing an astonishingly large installed base of 70 billion meters of Category 5e and Category 6 cabling and 1.3 billion outlets.
“Last quarter, NBASE-T switch and access point ports surged significantly as enterprises began to upgrade their campus networks to speeds beyond 1G,” said Alan Weckel, vice president of Ethernet switch market research at Dell’Oro Group. “There will be a sizable upgrade cycle around NBASE-T technology with robust growth expected over the next several years. As a result, we expect 2017 NBASE-T port shipments to exceed three million ports.”
