NBASE-T Alliance Demos End-to-End Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions at Interop

MILPITAS, CA – April 14, 2015 – The NBASE-T Alliance, an industry-wide cooperative effort to promote the development of 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet (2.5GE and 5GE) over twisted pair copper cabling (2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T) for enterprise network infrastructure, today announced it will conduct its first multivendor demonstration at Interop Booth #1251, April 28-30, 2015 in Las Vegas. Alliance members participating in the demo include Aquantia, Cavium (NASDAQ:CAVM), Centec Networks,Cisco, CommScope (NASDAQ:COMM), Freescale® (NYSE:FSL), Intel, Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL), Microsemi(NASDAQ:MSCC),Tehuti Networks and Xilinx (NASDAQ:XLNX).

The demonstration will show NBASE-T™ technology deployed in the three key components of an enterprise network: wireless access points, switches and client devices. Specific products on display will include NBASE-T technology-enabled wiring closet/campus LAN switches, 802.11ac Wave 2 Wireless LAN Access Points (WLAN APs), Network Interface Controller (NIC) in Personal Computer (PC), Network-Attached Storage (NAS), Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), network and embedded processors and Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) chipsets. Connectivity between these products will be based on a wide range of cabling configurations including Cat5e, Cat6 and Cat6a, with lengths extending up to 100m.

“Our interoperability demonstration is a strong statement of the maturity of NBASE-T technology and the widespread development of the ecosystem from a broad range of chip and system-level suppliers,” said Phil Delansay, chair of the Marketing Working Group, NBASE-T Alliance. “This is the largest demonstration of real-world solutions capable of pushing network speeds up to 5 Gbps using the installed base of Cat5e and Cat6 cabling infrastructure. By highlighting NBASE-T product interoperability, we not only show the strong industry movement toward delivering 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Ethernet solutions, but highlight the many concrete options available to customers who either want to build or buy NBASE-T products.”

According to Dell’Oro Group, the market for WLAN APs and enterprise LAN switches will grow to between 40 and 50 million ports by 2019.

“Today’s Gigabit Ethernet networks are not equipped to handle the onslaught of 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless solutions, yet ripping and replacing cable is an expensive and disruptive proposition,” said Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst, ZK Research. “It is encouraging to see so many companies actively developing NBASE-T solutions and to see the strong momentum behind a standard for 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T.”

About the NBASE-T Alliance

The NBASE-T Alliance is a consortium focused on developing and deploying products that support NBASE-T technology and the NBASE-T specifications. The specifications define the transport of 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet at up to 100 meters using the large, installed base of copper cabling, such as Cat5e and Cat6 found in enterprise networks. More than 25 companies have joined the alliance, representing all major facets of enterprise networking infrastructure such as wireless access points, Ethernet switching, and computing, as well as the necessary semiconductor components required to deliver these applications including physical layer ICs (PHYs), processors, connectors, controllers, switches, FPGAs and Power-over-Ethernet ICs. The alliance was founded in 2014 and its current board of directors is composed of representatives from Aquantia, Cisco, Freescale, Intel, Marvell, Qualcomm and Xilinx. Visit us at www.nbaset.org or connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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