For those of you who can’t attend the IEEE 802.3 Working Group meetings, I am happy to tell you that the Four Pair Power over Ethernet (4PPoE) Study Group has successfully completed its work and the IEEE P802.3bt Task Force has been approved by the working group in Dallas last week (the Power over Data Lines Study Group also succeeded in having the IEEE P802.3bu Task Force approved). I know that all of the IEEE lingo can get confusing so in plain English, the 4PPoE project has been approved and we can now begin making technical decisions and writing the new standard.
As the approval process doesn’t take place until the end of the Plenary Session, we continued to hear technical presentations during the week but will not be able to make decisions until we meet in January. The topics presented included cable heating, a method for determining pair-to-pair cable unbalance, and a method for meeting the backwards compatibility objectives we adopted (which I presented).
As this post is mainly a status update, I want to take a moment and discuss an important issue when it comes to writing the new standard: who gets to write it. Most importantly, the IEEE Working Group meetings are open to anyone who would like to attend (there is a meeting registration fee). While gaining voting rights at the working group level takes a few meetings, anyone who attends the task force meeting (where the actual standard is written) can begin voting immediately. I bring this up to encourage any of you who are interested to begin attending meetings. In fact, I hope to see you in January.
There is another reason to discuss meeting attendance. Historically, the PoE task forces have suffered from low PD manufacturer attendance. On the other hand, switch vendors (PSE manufacturers) and IC makers (the category I fall under) are well represented in the room. This may make sense because while PoE is an important feature that switch vendors and PoE IC makers sell directly, PD manufacturers are simply using the technology to power their device. This is a problem in my eyes. PD manufacturers are the end customer that this new standard is meant to serve and it is important that we have their input in order to maximize its effectiveness.
Finally, I would like to introduce a new part of the blog. If you have read my other posts, you know that I often ask for your feedback. In order to make it easier to contribute, and hopefully encourage some more responses, I will begin including a poll question or two at the end of each post. The first question is meant to get a feel for who is reading this blog and help me determine what kind of things to write about in the future. Please help me make this a better blog for you. Answer the question here.
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