Faster data on the familiar blue Ethernet cables may be on the cards after the formation of a new study group at the IEEE backed by experts from most of the major industry players including Broadcom, Cisco, Intel, Marvel, and HP Networking. The need for speed on twisted-pair Ethernet has been created by the arrival of the 802.11ac wireless standard that is capable of multi-gigabit data rates, as it would be ridiculous to have a multi-gigabit wireless modem fed by a cable that can only handle a gigabit. The new standard would have to be backwards-compatible with the current standards, including the power-over-Ethernet feature. One of the biggest challenges in accelerating wired Ethernet will be minimising crosstalk in cable bundles. A second challenge will be to develop modulation techniques that can maintain 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps transmissions over the full 100m of Ethernet cables, possibly by adapting a slowed-down 10Gbps Ethernet technology.
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