Tag Archive for IEEE

| November 17, 2015
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Sun Setting on Cat 5e

Sun Setting on Cat 5eThe sun is setting on the Cat 5e cabling standard. The long-standing standard defined how most commercial spaces around the world were cabled for nearly 20 years. Starting in 2017 Cat 5e will be considered obsolete for new installations following a decision by the ISO/IEC cabling standards body.

recommendation for Category 6AIn a recent blog post at CommScope (COMM), the ISO cabling standards body JTC1/SC25 WG3 working group agreed to raise the minimum horizontal cabling requirement. The new standard is stated in ISO/IEC 11801-2. Office space requirements change from Class D (Category 5e) to Class E (Category 6). It includes a recommendation for Class EA (Category 6A). Cat 6A will enable a smooth migration to 2.5, 5, and ultimately 10 gigabits per second (Gbps). In the drafts of 11801-5 (data centers) and 11801-6 (distributed services), the minimum requirement is already Class EA cabling.

Ethernet and IP communications everywhere

The original ISO/IEC 11801 standard enabled the explosive growth and mass deployment of Ethernet and IP communications everywhere. In its first edition, the author says the standard defined Class D balanced cabling based on Category 5 copper components. This standard offered an upgrade path from 10 to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) up to 100 meters. At that time, some experts and industry observers argued that 100 Mbps (100BASE-T) to the desk was overkill for the typical office user.

handful of cablesToday, 100BASE-T technology is in a rapid market decline. 100BASE-T is being replaced with 1000BASE-T (1 Gbps) according to the article. 1000BASE-T is commonplace for desktop and laptop PCs. It also benefits a wide range of other devices such as phones, cameras, and wireless access points (WAPs).

The 11801 standard now includes more cabling classes that were introduced to enable support of up to 10 Gbps. The new classes include Class E (Category 6), Class F (Category 7). Even more recently, Class EA (Category 6A) and Class FA (Category 7A).

Technology trends

According to the CommScope blog, a number of technology trends made ISO choose to upgrade the minimum recommendation for horizontal cabling in offices. Some of the trends recognized by the committee that are driving the adoption of speeds beyond one Captain Ethernetgigabit on the horizontal cabling include:

The rapid growth of BYOD is driving infrastructure upgrades to accommodate IEEE 802.11ac. As I have covered before, new IEEE specifications are being developed to accommodate 802.11ac wireless. 2.5GBASE-T is targeted at installed Class D cabling and 5GBASE-T is targeted at installed Class E cabling. It is expected that a sizable percentage of the installed base will be able to support the faster speeds, however, some installed Class D and Class E systems may require some mitigation steps.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| April 28, 2015
Comments Off on Wi-Fi Marches On

Wi-Fi Marches On

Wi-Fi Marches OnKevin Fitchard at GigaOm lays out where Wi-Fi is headed. Now that the second wave of 802.11ac Wi-Fi equipment is hitting the market, new pans are happening. The Wi-Fi Alliance and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) have begun to look ahead to 802.11ac successor. This time around, the wireless industry is turning its focus away from overall network capacity to real connection speed to the device.

IEEE logoMr. Fitchard explains that the huge gigabit-plus numbers often attributed to 802.11ac can be a bit misleading. They represent the overall capacity a Wi-Fi network can support. For instance, 1.3 Gbps in today’s most advanced routers, but only in the rarest of circumstances would any single device actually be able to connect at such high rates. The author argues that 802.11ac technologies improvements will be able to pack more high-speed connections into a single router and take advantage of bigger swaths of unlicensed spectrum.

Fair share

However, individual connections are still peaking at just over 300 Mbps. Assuming the broadband connection that can even support those speeds. Typical connection speeds are far slower. 802.11ac channel widthWith 802.11ax, though, wireless engineers are making sure the individual, not just the network, gets its fair share of attention, said Greg Ennis, VP of Technology for the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Wi-Fi Alliance logoThough the IEEE is still in the early stages of developing the 801.11ax specifications (we likely won’t have a ratified standard until at least 2018), it has begun setting priorities for the new technology, the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Ennis said. And at the top of that list is a 4X increase in speed to the device, possibly pushing individual device connections into the gigabit range.

MIMO-OFDA

GigaOm speculates that the IEEE is hoping to do this with a new radio technology called MIMO-OFDA. MIMO, or multiple input-multiple output, uses multiple antennas to send multiple streams of data to the same or different devices, while OFDA is a variant of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technologies used in 4G mobile and earlier Wi-Fi standards. The idea is to create a more powerful and efficient radio that can shove more bits into the same transmission. That would create a bigger data pipe to the individual devices, which would, in turn, add up to greater overall network capacity and better Wi-Fi performance even in the sketchiest of conditions, Mr. Ennis said. “The goal here is not just to increase average throughput, but the average throughput users would actually see in the real world, even in the densest environments,” Ennis said.

IEEE 802.11axChinese equipment maker Huawei (002502) — which is heading up the IEEE 802.11ax working group — is already doing trials of MIMO-OFDA systems and it’s hitting 10.53 Gbps in the lab using Wi-Fi’s traditional 5 GHz band. Whether that means a 10 Gbps to your smartphone or tablet remains to be seen, but it hardly seems relevant given it’s difficult to comprehend what any device could possibly do with a 10 Gbps connection (much less a home broadband connection capable of supporting a high-capacity link).

 

IEEE 802.11ah

Faster simultaneous Wi-Fi connections

But if 802.11ax lives up to its promise, the author says it should be able to squeeze a lot more and a lot faster simultaneous connections out of a single router or hotspot, which would mean a far better experience for everyone on a crowded network. Though the IEEE won’t ratify 802.11ax until 2018 or later, we might see the Wi-Fi Alliance certify “draft-ax” devices and equipment beforehand just as we saw “draft-n” and “draft-ac” devices before their respective 802.11 standards were finalized. It all depends on how far the wireless industry has progressed with the underlying technology in the coming years, Ennis said. A range comparison for different Wi-Fi technologies. And long before we see the “ax” suffix stamped onto any gadget or router, other combinations of the Wi-Fi alphabet will make an appearance.

The Alliance will begin certifying the first 802.11ad, or WiGig, devices next year, supporting extremely close range but very high-capacity links between gadgets and peripherals. A bit further down the road is 802.11ah, which will take Wi-Fi to the 900 MHz band where it will provide narrowband but long-range connectivity to the internet of things.

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Techie wireless alphabet  – IEEE, N, AC, AD, AH, AX, MIMO, OFDM, EI, EIO, O!

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| April 16, 2015
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Wi-Fi Charges Up Ethernet

Wi-Fi Charges Up EthernetInformation Technology prognosticators Gartner (IT) predicts that 40% of enterprises will use Wi-Fi as the default connection for mobile and non-mobile devices by 2018 according to Fred Donovan at FierceMobileIT. The prediction says that typically fixed location devices like; desktops, desk phones, projectors, and conference rooms will use Wi-Fi as their primary connection replacing Ethernet.

Wi-FI logoGartner says Wi-Fi is facilitating BYOD. The enterprise Wi-Fi network now allows workers to choose any device and move anywhere in the workplace. Gartner argues that the introduction of security measures like 802.1X augmented with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption has lessened IT’s worry about security breaches involving the Wi-Fi infrastructure. Ken Dulaney, V.P. and distinguished analyst at Gartner said;

Ethernet cabling has been the mainstay of business workspace connectivity since the beginning of networking. However, as smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other consumer devices have multiplied, the consumer space has largely converted to a wireless-first world

Facilitating BYOD

As the first connection to the enterprise infrastructure, Wi-Fi brings workers the ability to choose any device and move anywhere without worry. VP Dulaney continued;

WI-FI certifiedAs bring your own device (BYOD) has increased in many organizations, the collision of the business and consumer worlds has changed workers’ demands

Furthermore, cabling systems or even peer-to-peer (P2P) wireless solutions using technologies that offer cable replacement have had to deal with a variety of connectors challenges, such as USB and micro-USB, as video systems move beyond Video Graphics Array (VGA). The market research firm also argues that MACD costs will decrease.

MACD costsAdditions, moves, and changes are costly inconveniences that waste time for enterprise IT organizations. A move can sometimes involve cabling changes that can cost as much as $1,000 … With Wi-Fi printers, desktops, and other devices, all that is required is a cable to the power source, leaving workers free to move themselves making reconfigurations of offices easier.

Because of the many benefits of Wi-FI, Gartner VP Dulaney predicts firms are going to change how they connect;

we expect many organizations to shift to a wireless-by-default and a wired-by-exception model.

New Ethernet specifications

In order to deal with the new wireless-by-default reality, changes are needed on the wired network.  at FierceCIO reports that the vendor community is working to address the Wi-Fi first world. Unfortunately, there are two industry groups pushing their own new Ethernet specifications. Mr. Mah says that new Ethernet standards are needed to work with Wave 2 of 802.11ac wireless access points (AP) with a theoretical maximum throughput of up to 3.5Gbps.

NCaptain Ethernetew standards are needed because the existing Gigabit Ethernet is a bottleneck and current alternatives are not attractive. First, link-aggregating two Gigabit Ethernet connections for each Wi-Fi AP would need additional cabling and more expensive managed switches to support it. Using 10GbE would be overkill. Upgrading to 10GbE is a significant investment that includes new Category 6a or Category 7 cables, more power, and more cabling.

One faction, the MGBase-T Alliance, was formed in June 2014 and includes; Avaya, Aruba Networks (ARUN), and Brocade (BRCD) as well as component vendors Broadcom (BRCM) and Freescale Semiconductor. The other group known as the NBase-T Alliance was formed in October 2014. This faction consists of Cisco (CSCO), Intel, Xilinx (XLNX), Freescale, and Aquantia, a company that’s already making 2.5G/5G components.

Little agreement on standards

At the moment, the only agreement between the two factions is that 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps speeds are needed. The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee has set up the P802.3bz 2.5/5GBase-T Task Force to address this issue. The 2015 Q1 CommScope Standards Advisor reports that the 802.3bz Ethernet cablescommittee has decided so far that:

  • 2.5 GBase-T option will run on Cat 5e (Class D) 4 pair UTP up to 100M, and
  • 5 GBase-T option will run on Cat 6 (Class E) 4 pair UTP up to 100M.
  • There is no release date yet

The concern, however, is that vendors could jump the gun by shipping pre-standard products ahead of standards rectification, complicating matters and slowing down the development of the pertinent standards.

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Remember 802.11n? Pre-standard products? Given that there is no guarantee that systems built with components from the two groups will work together. Don’t jump the gun – waiting for the standard to solidify before buying into new 2.5G/5G Ethernet networking hardware.

For now, Dell’Oro Group analyst Alan Weckel told FierceCIO is that enterprises will probably be able to buy 2.5G/5G equipment starting in Q2 of 2015. 

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| April 9, 2015
Comments Off on 802.3bt More Power to the People’s Devices

802.3bt More Power to the People’s Devices

802.3bt More Power to the People's DevicesPower over Ethernet (PoE) powers more than one million end devices today. To continue PoE’s success, the IEEE is answering the market’s demands for more power by developing 802.3bt the third generation of PoE.

The first generation of PoE (2003), 802.3af delivered 12.95 Watts. The second generation, 802.3at (2009) provides 25.5 Watts to the equipment. The new version of PoE will address the need for higher-power PoE. The IEEE has proposed a new standard, 802.3bt, which promises to double the power output of the current 802.3at standard. The new 802.3bt standard, scheduled to be released in 2017, will also adjust PoE to work with 10Gbase-T.

IEEE logoCabling Installation & Maintenance Magazine provides an excellent overview of the new standard. They report that the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee which develops and maintains networking standards like Ethernet, VLANs, and Wireless LAN, is developing the new standard. The DTE Power via MDI over 4-Pair Task Force is working to specify a set of next-generation PoE specifications, and the levels of power likely to be delivered ultimately via the 802.3bt standard will still work on twisted-pair cable, possibly as a four-pair PoE specification which could improve energy efficiency and offer greater power.

New POE Applications

IndustryApplicationTypical Power Consumption
HealthcareNurse call system30-50W
RetailPoint of sale system30-60W
BankingIP Turrets45W
Building ManagementVariable air volume controllers, Access controllers40-50W
Enterprise ITThin clients, Virtual desktop terminals50W
HospitalityPOE switches45-60W
Premise SecurityPTZ cameras30-60W
IndustrialBrushless drives, Motor control>30W
VariousDigital signage>30W
VariousMultichannel wireless access points>30W
via CommScope

The new PoE standard will support 10GBase-T. The 10GBase-T standard uses all 4 pairs to send data. These facts will force the IEEE 802.3bt committee to figure out how to keep the power from interfering with the data on the same wires to supply a minimum of 49 watts at the powered device. One of the key parameters the article mentions is to limit pair-to-pair current imbalance.

POE logoOther goals for the 802.3bt standard are: to be backward-compatible with “af” and “at.” and increased energy efficiency. According to the article, a global move to 4-pair POE systems would create potential energy savings of 60.8 million kilowatt-hours which would prevent greenhouse gasses from 66 million pounds of coal saved annually.

Paul Vanderlaan, technical manager of cable maker Berk-Tek – Nexans’ advanced design and applications lab and other cabling-industry technical experts believe that 802.3bt’s support of 10GBase-T means that the minimum twisted-pair cabling system requirement will increase.  In order to support 10GBase-T, it seems likely that a Category 6A system will be the recommendation. The author notes that the IEEE does not address cabling performance, that is the focus of groups like the TIA or ISO/IEC.

The transition to the new PoE standard will not be simple. CommScope published a white paper where they explain:

Category 6A cabling… Category 5e cabling only provides the minimum level of performance required. Therefore, it is recommended to use Category 6 or Category 6A cabling-preferably solutions … 

Berk-Tek’s Vanderlaan explained why Category 6A cabling is the preferred system. He summarizes the electrical-engineering calculations;

As a general rule, increased copper content, or larger gauge size, will aid in power delivery … when you migrate … you should see larger gauge sizes and more copper content.

system performance characteristicsUnder the new standard users will have to pay attention to new cabling-system performance characteristics like DC resistance unbalance and pair-to-pair resistance imbalance.  The higher wattage’s up to 1 full amp (1,00 milliamps) will present challenges to performance requirements. Mr. Vanderlaan told Cabling Installation & Maintenance Magazine:

For users, cable selection will be based not just on the speed that can be supported, but rather on speed as well as power delivery. What you simply plug in today, you may want to also power in the future.

A new challenge cable plant owners will have to consider is heat. CommScope explains that heat generated within bundles of cables supporting IEEE 802.3bt could rise enough to effect performance.

ambient temperature… the temperature of the cabling will rise due to heat generation in the copper conductors  … the temperature of the cable bundle higher than the ambient temperature of the surrounding environment … The IEEE 802.3bt four-pair PoE standard is expected to assume a maximum temperature rise of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees F) when all four pairs are energized … the ambient temperature should not exceed 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees F) … CommScope recommends Category 6A cabling for four-pair PoE applications. Because increased thermal loading can also increase insertion loss, the maximum cable length should be de-rated for higher temperatures, per ANSI/TIA-568-C.2.

Several vendors have already released pre-standard device-powering systems to meet users’ current needs.

As in the pre-PoE standard days, Cisco (CSCO) has marketed proprietary PoE systems since 2011. Cisco’s Universal Power Over Ethernet (UPOE) technology, which delivers 60 watts of power to devices powered by the Catalyst 4500E; some of those devices include Cisco IP phones, personal telepresence systems, compact switches and wireless access points.

Also, the non-standard Power Over HDBase-T (POH) was introduced by the HDBase-T Alliance a trade group that promotes and standardizes HDBase-T technology for whole-home distribution of uncompressed high-definition (HD) multimedia content. This system delivers up to 100 watts of power to TVs and other devices over distances up to 100 meters/320 feet via one Category 5e or 6 cable with standard RJ45 connectors.

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The new standard is a welcome addition to the toolkit. Cost savings is one of the appeals to PoE. On many projects, PoE low voltage contractors can do the work rather than electrical contractors. If the new system pushes the maximum rate to 75W at the devices as some predict, with there be a backlash from the EC’s and authorities having jurisdiction? Time will tell.

In the meantime, the article says owners and managers should check their current infrastructure with eyes toward how the next generation of devices might be powered via more-capable PoE technology.

Of course, it is always a good idea to pull out your acceptance documentation to understand the installed base of the cable and the likelihood that the cable has the electrical performance characteristics required to support the next generation of PoE.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| November 7, 2013
Comments Off on 802.11ac Wi-Fi – Don’t Bother Yet

802.11ac Wi-Fi – Don’t Bother Yet

802.11ac Wi-Fi - Don't Bother YetThe new iPads are here! The new iPads are here! There’s no 802.11ac here! But that’s expected. Experienced Apple watchers know that Apple likes to let new radio technologies mature before they integrate them into their new idevices. So that means most enterprises can slow their plans to upgrade their Wi-Fi to the new standard according to Kevin Fitchard at GigaOM.

The new iPads are hereThe latest Apple (AAPL) tablet doesn’t sport the new soon-to-be-completed IEEE 802.11ac standard, even though Apple’s latest generation routers, PCs, and laptops all support it. GigaOM reports Apple is providing is a speed boost to the now thoroughly established 802.11n networking standard in the form of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) smart antenna technology. Like many Wi-Fi routers on the market, the iPad Air has dual antennas, allowing it to wend two parallel paths over the unlicensed airwaves. The MIMO implementation will double the speeds at which the iPad can access Wi-Fi networks, according to Apple.

The Wi-Fi Alliance only began certifying commercial 802.11ac devices in June, and even those devices only incorporate partial versions of the full 802.11ac spec. The IEEE isn’t expected to fully complete the standard until 2014. Very few smartphones and tablets have ac embedded as of yet, though the technology is making its way into consumer and enterprise routers and PCs, including Apple’s newest MacBooks and iMacs.

iPad AirBut waiting another year for 802.11ac-enabled iPhones and iPads also means we’ll probably have to wait another year before we see wide-scale adoption of the standard in public hotspots and access points. Unlike in the home, most outdoor and public Wi-Fi connections are made over mobile devices, not PCs.

In an interview with GigaOM, Boingo VP of corporate communications Christian Gunning said it hasn’t turned up 802.11ac in any of its hundreds of thousands of owned and managed hotspots yet, simply because it’s seeing very few devices with ac radios trying to access its network.

higher-powered 802.3at Power over EthernetFierceCIO‘s Paul Mah offers more reasons to delay the roll-out of 802.11ac. The advanced 802.11ac radio is more power-hungry than earlier iterations of Wi-Fi. So it will more likely need the use of the higher-powered 802.3at Power over Ethernet (PoE) to run 802.11ac with all its bells and whistles. It is possible that businesses still on 802.3af PoE (rb- Majority) may well have to incur extra infrastructure costs to deploy 802.11ac today. Mr. Mah contends that it is yet to be seen if improved 802.11ac chipsets will allow firms to stick with legacy PoE. (rb- For a refresher on PoE, check out these posts 802.3af and 802.3at)

Another consideration according to FierceCIO is clients. The handful of business-grade 802.11ac wireless APs on the market today typically support three spatial streams, which allows for a (theoretical) maximum data rate of 1.3Gbps in the 5GHz band. Though this is a significant improvement over 450 Mbps 802.11n, the dearth of 802.11ac client devices renders this a moot point. Some will argue that Apple did incorporate 802.11ac into the new MacBook Air laptops.  However, they did not include it in the new iPads, or the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C smartphones. And with no smartphones or tablets equipped with 802.11ac capabilities today, this does make deploying it a rather pointless strategy for BYOD.

802.11ac "second wave"Finally, Mr. Mah points out that while 1.3Gbps is a good speed to have, we should keep in mind that 802.11ac does have a theoretical maximum speed of 7 Gbps. A “second wave” of 802.11ac that implements four or more data streams for much faster speeds should be arriving in the second half of 2014. He says current signs are that this second wave of 802.11ac devices might need new processor chips–which means you will have to buy new 802.11ac hardware to benefit.

GigaOM’s Fitchard stresses Apple’s influence when it comes to popularizing new technology, he says the iPhone and the iPad’s reach shouldn’t be underestimated. As an example, new Passpoint-certified phones have been out for more than a year, but it wasn’t until Apple started offering support for Passpoint’s automatic login technology in iOS7 that the wireless industry took notice. It was only after Apple made iOS7 publicly available, that Boingo started Passpoint trials.

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I’m not saying 802.11ac is a bad thing, but enterprises need to ignore the hype cycle and make decisions that are best for them and not the multi-billion dollar networking industry. IMHO 802.11ac is still immature, there are few devices out there that can fully take advantage, the full feature set is not fully implemented in silicon and you finished the upgrade to 802.11n yet?

What to do?

What does your wired network look like? Are you still connecting your AP’s at 100 Mbps? That is a bottleneck with 802.11n.

Do you have enough juice? What is your PoE status? Do you have enough PoE+ ports? Are they being used for just an access port – wasting the extra costs of a PoE port?

Both switches cost money, is there a budget available for these items or is IT going to spend an operational budget to address a structural issue?

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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