NBASE-T Alliance Celebrates Approval of 2.5/5G Ethernet Standard

BEAVERTON, OR--(Marketwired - Sep 27, 2016) - The NBASE-T Alliance today celebrates the IEEE approval of IEEE 802.3bz™, a new standard that defines 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet speeds over the large installed base of twisted pair copper cabling (2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T). The new standard offers seamless upgrade of older 1000BASE-T networks -- a technology that was introduced nearly 20 years ago -- and boosts the speed of many Ethernet networks up to five times with no changes to the cabling infrastructure. Final approval of the standard took place during the IEEE-SA Standards Board meeting held last week.

Established in October 2014, the NBASE-T Alliance has provided an open forum for building consensus around the development of the technology and the standard, and has helped members create specifications to facilitate product development. The NBASE-T specifications are consistent with the baselines adopted for the new IEEE 802.3bz standard and have resulted in the deployment of a variety of products ranging from chips and switches to cabling solutions, test equipment and more. As a result, the alliance has enabled an extensive ecosystem of products and rapid proliferation of the technology in advance of standards approval. Products developed using the NBASE-T specification are expected to be compatible with the IEEE standard via minor software upgrades.

"From proposal to approval, the standards process took less than two years -- a remarkably fast progression," said Peter Jones, chairman, NBASE-T Alliance. "Seeing the standard approved so quickly has been an enormously satisfying experience, and shows what can be achieved when we work together to develop a compelling solution that offers clear value to the industry."

"With rapid approval of the standard and more than one million PHY ports already shipped, there is clear industry momentum behind 2.5G and 5GBASE-T Ethernet," said Kamal Dalmia, president, NBASE-T Alliance. "The alliance looks forward to continued promotion of this new technology with activities such as plugfests and tradeshows, and exploring additional applications for its use."

Large and Growing Market for NBASE-T Solutions

The applications for NBASE-T solutions are vast and growing. Enterprise, small medium business, industrial and home networks can take advantage of this technology to enable higher capacity wireless access points and faster downloads to client systems such as medical imaging systems that work with large data files, upgraded industrial and home networks. NBASE-T products give users the ability to dramatically increase bandwidth without having to consider the costly, and in some cases impractical, proposition of ripping and replacing an astonishingly large installed base of 70 billion meters of Category 5e and Category 6 cabling and 1.3 billion outlets.

"Last quarter, NBASE-T switch and access point ports surged significantly as enterprises began to upgrade their campus networks to speeds beyond 1G," said Alan Weckel, vice president of Ethernet switch market research at Dell'Oro Group. "There will be a sizable upgrade cycle around NBASE-T technology with robust growth expected over the next several years. As a result, we expect 2017 NBASE-T port shipments to exceed three million ports."

About the NBASE-T Alliance

The NBASE-T Alliance is an industry-wide cooperative effort focused on enabling the development and deployment of products that support 2.5G and 5GBASE-T Ethernet. The alliance was founded in 2014 to build consensus and help streamline the development of a new standard. That standard, IEEE 802.3bz, was approved in September 2016 and is compatible with specifications published by the NBASE-T Alliance. The specifications enabled member companies to quickly develop and deploy 2.5G and 5GBASE-T products, making use of the large, installed base of copper cabling, such as Cat5e and Cat6, found in many places including enterprise, home and service provider networks. Today, the alliance continues to publish specifications, facilitate interoperability and educate the market about the multiple applications of the technology. The alliance board of directors is composed of representatives from Aquantia, Cisco, CME Consulting, Intel, Marvell, NXP and Xilinx. Visit us at nbaset.org or connect with us on Twitter or LinkedIn.