Cabling Installation and Maintenance Magazine has just published an  interesting article on 10GBASE-T and twisted pair copper cabling in their March issue.  Written by Ron Cates of PLX (a leading 10Gb/s PHY developer) and Siemon’s Val Maguire, it gives a solid overview of recent developments in 10GBASE-T equipment technology and the effect it will have on the future of twisted pair cabling.

CI&M Article: LINK

Key Point Overview:

• 10GBASE-T is NOT the end of the line for twisted pair copper
• 10GBASE-T networking equipment is available and adoption is increasing –projected to be dominant 10Gb/s Ethernet application by 2014
• 10GBASE-T equipment is no longer “power hungry”
  • Early generations of 10GBASE-T equipment consumed up to 10W per port.
  • Current PHY technology uses less than 4W per port.
  • Pending technology will bring it to below 2.5W by 2013
  • 10GBASE-T also supports additional power-saving technologies not possible with other 10Gb/s Ethernet applications:
    • Wake-on-LAN (WOL) – allows equipment to enter low-power “sleep” mode, consuming negligible power, until needed
    • Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) – reduces power consumption by 50% to 90% by using a Low Power Idle (LPI) mode
    • Short-Reach Mode – Allows equipment to auto-detect shorter channels and scale power back accordingly. For example, a typical 100m 10GBASE-T channel may consume 3.5W per port while a 10m channel may only consume 2W per port.
• 10GBASE-T is by far the most cost effective 10GB/s application