ProLabs has introduced a new high-speed SFP-NBASE-T combo transceiver. The IEEE-802.3bz/NBASE-T transceiver is SFF-8431 and SF-8432 MSA-compliant and supports low power consumption and EMI emissions. It features an MDI/MDIX crossover mode with unshielded and shielded cable support, as well as multiple loopback modes for testing and troubleshooting, built-in cable monitoring and link diagnostic features, and a robust die-cast housing.
“More than 90% of structured cabling installed between 2003-2014 (approximately 70 billion meters) has been CAT5/6, with current technologies’ throughput on these cable types limited to 1Gbps. This will be a bottleneck to delivering bandwidth available from end points such as 802.11ac that have the capability to deliver greater than 1.3 Gbps with Wave 1 and greater than 2.3 Gbps with emerging Wave 2 products,” notes Tony Lefebvre, VP of products and marketing at ProLabs. He adds, “Rather than incur the time and expense of replacing existing plant with CAT6A/7 or fiber, the NBASE-T transceiver solution from ProLabs enables customers to use an existing SFP+ port on their network equipment and connect over existing CAT5/6 cabling, delivering 2.5/5Gbps throughput. With the NBASE-T transceiver solution, customers can greatly increase their time-to-service and defer costly re-cabling.”
Ideal for bi-directional communication over copper cable, the unit's NBASE-T transceiver module is a high-performance integrated duplex data link, with the ability to support 2.5G transfer speeds at cable lengths of up to 100M using Cat5e cabling and 5G using Cat 6 Cabling.
Per a press release from ProLabs, "With the advent of 802.11ac with Wave 2 Wi-Fi Access Point (AP) products delivering greater than 2.3 Gbps, customers need to address the backhaul connectivity which in the case of CAT5/6 is limited to 1Gbps with current technologies. When replacing existing previous generation AP’s, the NBASE-T transceiver enables customers to keep their CAT5/6 infrastructure intact while delivering the throughput required by the newly added 802.11ac AP. HD CCTV and high-performance computing also benefit from NBASE-T’s greater throughput, allowing these and other bandwidth hungry applications to run at a higher rate over existing infrastructure, not only improving end user quality of experience but deferring costly cabling infrastructure replacement programs."