Re: Signal vs. Idle debate (was: Here's a new idea)
One comment, Mike,
Mike_S_McCormack@ne.3com.com wrote:
>
> I am of the opinion (and trust me this whole mail is just opinions) that the
> real markets for power over Ethernet are not yet discovered, and between now and
> then a huge number of Ethernet ports will ship. If we require customers to
> replace all their wiring closet equipment, the adoption rate of power will be in
> fractions of a percent of the total shipments forever. If we provide a means
> for users do not have to fork lift all their capital equipment, we will allow
> the power applications to be added incrementally and the market will develop.
If the market is growing very rapidly, then existing owners of (what will soon
be) absurdly bulky and expensive switches will be small fraction of the total
Ethernet market, and catering to those old switches with add-on boxes to
supply power will be a niche market. Whether we choose the data pair or the
spare pair should be conditioned more on 1) the total cost to the buyer of
equipment designed with DTE power in mind, and 2) on the needs of 1G and
faster links, than on the cost of existing installations. (Note that this
argument says that the woes of existing 4-wire installations is relatively
unimportant.) In other words, I think that powering 1G is more important
in the long term than cheaply adding on to 10M ports' capabilities.
-- Norm