Ethernet Alliance to Host Next IEEE 802.3 Interim Meeting

By Frank Griffin
Contributing Writer

The Ethernet Alliance (News - Alert) brings together system and component vendors, industry experts, and university and government professionals with the goal of increasing the adoption and development of Ethernet technology. The organization establishes Ethernet standards based on new technologies so they can be available in the market place with the best chance for adoption. The alliance announced it is going to be hosting the next IEEE 802.3 Interim Meeting for the sixth year in a row. The meeting will be highlighting recent developments in IEEE (News - Alert) 802.3 Ethernet standards and technologies that are ready and scheduled to hit the market in the next six to 18 months.

The IEEE 802.3 Interim Meeting will be held May 22-26, 2017, at the InterContinental New Orleans in Louisiana. At that time, standards work underway across Ethernet speeds from 2.5Gb/s to 400Gb/s; the next generation of Power over Ethernet (PoE); industrial applications including a 10Mb/s Ethernet solution to operate over single balanced twisted-pair cabling; multi-gigabit solutions for automotive applications of Ethernet; YANG data models for more efficient management of Ethernet networks, and the next generation of Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) will be reviewed.

“This IEEE 802.3 Interim Meeting comes amid a flow of next-generation Ethernet innovations from the equipment manufacturers, system and component vendors, test and measurement providers and other varied Ethernet stakeholders that our organization serves,” said John D’Ambrosia, chair, Ethernet Alliance, and senior principal engineer, Huawei (News - Alert).

There will also be discussions in New Ethernet Application Ad Hoc, including beyond-10km optics for 50GbE/200GbE/400GbE, next-generation multi-mode fiber (MMF) and 100Gb/s electrical signaling.

The promotion of advanced Ethernet by the alliance is being encouraged by industry players across all segments as high-bandwidth services continue to enter the market place. It is not only large enterprises that now demand multi-gigabit Ethernet technology. Small businesses and consumers are also accessing cloud applications, streaming content, video communications, and real-time services.

For data centers, network operators, telecoms and service providers, the multi-gigabit Ethernet technology cannot come fast enough. The wider use of IEEE 802.3 Ethernet will address the deployment of the technology beyond the traditional enterprise and data center application.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and the billions of devices it will be connecting, as well as industrial applications, will be depending on this technology as part of a wired and wireless ecosystem with multi-gigabit capabilities.