NBASE-T Alliance and Ethernet Alliance to Unite Through Merger

With NBASE-T technology gaining significant market momentum, the NBASE-T Alliance and the Ethernet Alliance have decided to join forces. The Ethernet Alliance, the global consortium dedicated to the advancement of Ethernet technologies, signed an agreement to consolidate NBASE-T activities under the Ethernet Alliance. The NBASE-T Alliance is an industry-wide cooperative effort focused on enabling the development and deployment of products that support 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Ethernet.

The Ethernet Alliance, the global consortium dedicated to the continued success and advancement of Ethernet technologies, hailed the ratification of IEEE 802.3bt, IEEE Standard for Ethernet - Amendment 2: Power over Ethernet (PoE) over 4 Pairs. Among other additions, the newly ratified specification introduces four new classes and increases maximum power levels supplied by a factor of three. The new standard sets stage for robust Power over Ethernet market growth as the consortium readies second-generation product certification program.

The Ethernet Alliance, the global consortium dedicated to the advancement of Ethernet technologies, hailed the ratification of the IEEE 802.3bz standard, allowing an upgrade path for existing infrastructures, considering the more than 70 billion meters of Cat5e / Cat6 cabling installed worldwide. The new IEEE standard allows network access layer bandwidth to evolve incrementally beyond 1 Gigabit per second (Gb/s) to 2.5 Gb/s and 5 Gb/s.

Significant progress achieved at recent IEEE 802 Plenary meetings highlights Ethernet’s increasing relevance in rapidly diversifying base of markets and applications. Progress across several Ethernet projects includes 25Gb/s operations for next-gen servers, 100Mb/s operations for automotive and signalling decisions for 400GbE.

The Ethernet Alliance released its 2015 Ethernet Roadmap, the first-ever publicly available industry document outlining the ongoing development and evolution of Ethernet through the end of the decade. Four new speeds – 2.5 Gigabit per second (Gb/s); 5 Gb/s; 25 Gb/s; and 400 Gb/s Ethernet – are currently in development by the IEEE, while the industry is also considering 50Gb/s and 200 Gb/s Ethernet.