Posted by Michael Marr

Back in June, the IEEE finally approved the 802.3ba standard. The standard began to be investigated back in mid-2006, and has finally culminated in the new 802.3 standard. This is the first time two connection speeds have been specified in one standard. The previously fastest IEEE standard was 802.3av for 10 Gb/s.

What does this new standard mean for the IT industry? The intent of this standard was to support faster connection speeds for server-to-server operations, so don’t expect to be purchasing a 40 Gb/s router and NIC from your local electronics retailer anytime soon. In fact, the IEEE 802.3ba task force specifically recognized that the current 10/100/1000 Mb/s was appropriate for most implementations of LANs, but that the current 10,000 Mb/s standard was lacking for larger server and network implementations, including the backbone of the Internet.

This new standard doesn’t call for or utilize any new media technologies, but rather simply outlines the necessary procedures and protocols to follow when utilizing these connection speeds over existing optical and copper line technologies. The new standard also works with the existing IEEE 802.3 standards, and thus will not require a major overhaul of equipment or infrastructure to implement.

This standard will surely help the US government’s Broadband Plan (http://www.broadband.gov), which aims to provide broadband to all US homes. In particular, a large section of US homes are targeted to reach 100 Mb/s connections and all libraries, schools, and hospitals should reach speeds of 1 Gb/s.

With the continuing push and market trend to cloud services and large scale web applications, expect to see a fast availability and adoption of products and services utilizing these much needed connection standards.

For a more detailed information, you can check out the IEEE 802.3ba Task Force’s page here: http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/ba/index.html. However, the actual standard itself is only available for purchase. You’ll have to wait six months after release to obtain any of IEEE’s standards for free.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 8:30 am and is filed under Network. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About the Author: Michael Marr is a IT staff Writer for WebProNews.