The nearly 20 year old 1000BASE-T network standard has finally been followed by a successor. The new standard, IEEE802.3bz defines 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet speeds and therefore offers a five fold increase compared to the current standard. Perhaps even more important than the amount of the speed increase, is the fact that this new standard works over existing CAT5e and CAT6 cables to reach these respective speeds.

The latter is particularly good news for network and infrastructure managers. Estimates are that in the past 15 years about 70 billion kilometers of CAT5e and CAT6 has been installed in industries and commercial buildings – more than 10x the average distance to Pluto! This does therefore not need to be replaced to upgrade the network. 'Only' replacing the network hardware (switches, routers, etc) is sufficient to give the bandwidth of the network a significant boost.

More information: www.nbaset.org