Major Standards Organisations Begin Work on 40Gb/s Twisted-Pair Cabling Specifications
Siemon’s Valerie Maguire reports that both ISO/IEC and TIA have formally initiated projects to develop performance standards for balanced twisted-pair copper cabling capable of supporting 40 Gb/s transmission.
Recent new project approvals in both the ISO/IEC and TIA structured cabling groups have set the stage to allow interest in the specification of 40 Gb/s transmission-ready twisted-pair cabling requirements to quickly gain momentum. The early volume of expert contributions related to these projects indicates strong industry commitment and investment in copper-based Ethernet for future higher-speed applications and underscores the technical and commercial viability of these solutions.
At the October, 2011 ISO/IEC 11801 meeting in Melbourne, Australia, the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25/WG 3 Working Group initiated a new work item proposal (NWIP) to develop requirements for balanced twisted-pair cabling that can support 40 Gb/s data transmission.
Similarly, after initiating a new cabling project to address the need to support greater-than 10 Gb/s transmission in February 2011, the TIA TR-42.7 copper cabling subcommittee formally adopted baseline objectives for next generation cabling performance in October 2011. These parameters are anticipated to be published in addendum 1 to ANSI/TIA-568-C.2 in 2014.
While both the ISO/IEC and TIA initiatives focus on developing a new class or category of copper cabling to support 40 Gb/s transmission, it is interesting to note that ISO/IEC also plans to develop guidelines describing the 40 Gb/s capacity exhibited by existing classes of cabling.
Siemon’s Valerie Maguire, a contributor to both the ISO/IEC and TIA groups, has issued brief overviews of the new standards activities, available on Siemon’s network infrastructure blog:
• ISO/IEC initiates 40 Gb/s copper cabling project
• TIA adopts next generation cabling baseline objectives: http://turt.co/tsc0650x
About Siemon
Established in 1903, Siemon is an industry leader specialising in the manufacture and innovation of high quality, high-performance copper and optical fibre network cabling solutions. With offices and partners throughout the world, Siemon offers a global service and has a reputation for delivering market leading performance with systems that maximise efficiency and return on investment.
Siemon’s products include the most comprehensive suite of copper available, in both unshielded and shielded twisted-pair, for category 5e, category 6 (Class E), category 6A (Class EA) and category 7/7A (Class F/FA) standards performance. The company’s optical fibre range includes both multimode and singlemode cabling systems. In addition to cabling systems, the company has developed specific and specialised products for network provision in both enterprise and hosted data centre environments, often partnering with other global industry leaders in delivery of complete solutions for these markets. With over 400 patents specific to structured cabling, Siemon Labs invests heavily in R&D and development of industry standards, underlining the company’s long-term commitment to its customers and the industry.
