Remember the endless discussions and development steps of 10 Gb/s over copper. A lot of heated debates about the need, how does it work, power consumption, heat dissipation and of course the everlasting UTP v STP discussion. Now that’s all resolved and working well.

Today’s servers are now shipping with 10 Gb/s copper ports where the power consumption and heat dissipation has been reduced to an acceptable level.

The cabling industry developed two new cabling Classes, EA and FA and we see acceptance for shielded systems has been increased significantly.

As the global demand for more speed and more data continues unabated, the IEEE and some cabling groups have started a project called “Next Generation Ethernet” or in simple terms 40 Gb/s over copper.

As with all other Ethernet standards, the 40 Gb/s over copper standard is a process in iterations for both active and passive suppliers. In the near future there will be a recognised cabling solution and a customer demand.

High-end Class FA systems already have a bandwidth of 2000 MHz and therefore a capability for 40 Gb/s over copper.

As the market already offers systems with a performance far beyond Class FA, customers can already install today future-proof systems.

Based on current technical information a link length of 50m for 40 Gb/s is achievable with FA systems. This would support the typical average link length in many Enterprise environments.

The desire for a new EA+++ system would result automatically in Class FA systems also being acceptable.