NBASE-T Alliance Shows Rapidly Growing Ecosystem of 2.5G & 5G Ethernet Solutions at Interop ITX

Leading Vendors Demonstrate Portfolio of Interoperable Products for the New Ethernet Era

BEAVERTON, OR– April 25, 2017 – The NBASE-T Alliance , an industry-wide cooperative effort focused on enabling the development and deployment of products that support 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Ethernet, today announced that 10 member companies will demonstrate products featuring 2.5G and 5G Ethernet speeds in a variety of applications at the alliance’s Interop ITX Booth #317. Interop ITX takes place May 15-19, 2017, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV. The NBASE-T Alliance is a gold sponsor of the conference.

“Our display showcases how newly introduced NBASE-T products can be applied in a growing number of real-world scenarios—from enterprise and industrial to service provider and home applications—so that networks can offer faster than 1 Gbps Ethernet at the access layer without workplace disruption and costly cable plant upgrades,” said Peter Jones, chairman, NBASE-T Alliance. “Just as important, we are highlighting the accomplishments of the past year with our event sponsorship, underscoring the ratification of the 2.5G/5G BASE-T IEEE 802.3bz™ standard and the rapidly growing number of NBASE-T products.”

Providing the technology for IT managers to economically refresh aging campus infrastructure while supporting new applications and greater networking workloads, 10 alliance members are demonstrating NBASE-T equipment running on structured copper cabling of Category 5e or better. These companies include Aquantia, Aukua Systems, Cisco, Cu-Test, Fluke Networks, Intel, Microsemi, Panduit, Spirent and The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL), showing switches, SFP+ modules, client PCs, NAS appliances, test equipment, reference designs, wireless access points, and more that have been developed using the NBASE-T specification.

Acknowledging the surge in NBASE-T product shipments, industry analysts predict immediate and sustained growth of 2.5G and 5G Ethernet. The Dell’Oro Group believes enterprise users are hungry for this technology, which will support the increase in wireless bandwidth as networks transition to 802.11ac Wave 2 and 802.11ax.  Dell’Oro expects shipments to exceed five million ports this year, and continue to grow in 2018 as 1 Gbps shipments peak and begin their decline.

The NBASE-T specification was released in late 2014 when the industry came together to define a new 2.5G and 5G Ethernet specification. Using the NBASE-T specification as their blueprint, individuals from many alliance member companies helped rapidly define the IEEE 802.3bz™ standard, and then helped guide it to ratification in late 2016. Compatible with the IEEE 802.3bz standard, the NBASE-T specification also includes optimizations beyond the standard—such as an essential ‘downshift’ feature that enables uninterrupted network operation at the highest speed even as the transmission environment changes.

The availability of the NBASE-T specification in advance of the IEEE standard enabled member companies to take an early look at the technology and bring real-world solutions to market, which has translated into rapid adoption and deployment of the technology.

About Interop ITX
Interop ITX is the industry’s most trusted independent Conference focused on full stack IT education for tech leaders. The event continues the 30 years Interop has dedicated to providing IT decision makers with a trusted environment to learn, collaborate, and uncover new strategies and solutions they need to lead their teams and their businesses through constant change and disruption. Employed by a Conference-first model, Interop ITX offers both breadth and depth of content to a broad IT audience across core areas: Infrastructure, Security, Cloud, Data & Analytics, DevOps, and Leadership & Professional Development. For more information, visit reg.interop.com/ITX. Interop ITX is organized by UBM Americas, a part of UBM plc (UBM.L), an Events First marketing and communications services business. For more information, visit ubmamericas.com.

About the NBASE-T Alliance
The NBASE-T Alliance was founded in 2014 to build consensus and help streamline the development of a new 2.5G/5G Ethernet standard. That standard, IEEE 802.3bz, was approved in September 2016 and is compatible with specifications published by the NBASE-T Alliance. With hundreds of products shipping, the alliance now focuses on publishing optimizations to the specification, facilitating interoperability and educating the market about the multiple applications of the technology. Visit us at nbaset.org or connect with us on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Media Contact:
Erika Powelson
Powelson Communications, Inc.
408-781-4981
erika@powelsoninc.com