In a blog post, CommScope Enterprise Solutions' technical director for the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), Jim Young, expresses skepticism over the prospect of transmitting data at 40 Gbits/sec over twisted-pair cabling. "I don't believe that there is significant interest or market demand to justify the investment required to develop 40GBase-T on Category 7A cable," Young says in the post. He also says that chipset manufacturers are not currently on board with the prospect.
Young references discussions going on within LinkedIn groups on the topic. He says these discussions hark back to the days of "open dialog with plenty of heat and passion from those in the cabling industry."
The idea of transmitting data at speeds higher than 10 Gbits/sec has been gaining some momentum in the industry, including within standards bodies. Our cablinginstall.com website and Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine have paid attention to the issue. In April 2011, CI&M published an article by chief editor Patrick McLaughlin entitled "The technical realities of twisted-pair beyond 10G." A rebuttal titled "A reality check on 'technical realites'" was published in June. More recently, an online seminar included a presentation on the activities of the Next Generation Cabling Task Group within the TIA's TR-42.7 Copper Cabling Systems Subcommittee.
Over the past year-plus, CommScope has used its blog to voice opinions on technical and business issues within the structured cabling industry and other industries the company serves. Late last year the company's manager for training and technology Eric Leichter took to his blog to raise questions about the value of bend-insensitive multimode fiber. (That topic also was addressed in the above-referenced web seminar.)
We will continue to track the progress of a possible 40GBase-T and report updates.
You can read Jim Young's blog post here.
You can check out our Online Buyer's Guide to find manufacturers of shielded twisted-pair cable and connectors.