Siemon 10GBASE-T 100 meter performance confirmed

Siemon 10G 6A UTP, 10G 6A F/UTP and Category 7/Class F TERA copper cabling systems meet or exceed all 10GBASE-T performance parameters dictated by the now ratified IEEE 802.3an-2006 standard

Recent testing performed by Solarflare Communications confirms that the Siemon 10G 6A UTP, 10G 6A F/UTP and Category 7/Class F TERA copper cabling systems meet or exceed all 10GBase-T performance parameters dictated by the now ratified IEEE 802.3an-2006 standard.

Three separate Siemon cabling systems were individually tested at the Solarflare test facility in Irvine, California.

Utilising the Solarflare compliant IEEE 802.3an-2006 10GBase-T 10Xpress PHY products, all tests were performed on 100 meter channel lengths, based on a worst-case six around one (6A1) alien crosstalk configuration.

The 10GBase-T standard requires that all PHY products claiming compliance with the standard perform on this 100 meter worst-case channel.

More specifically, the 6A1 configuration simulates a worst-case alien crosstalk environment, with six disturber cables bundled tightly around a seventh victim cable.

Full line rate 10Gb/s bi-directional Ethernet traffic was launched on each channel.

A total of fourteen Solarflare 10GBase-T compliant PHY cards were required to simulate a fully stressed environment (i.e seven PHY units on each end of 6A1 configuration).

Under these challenging worst-case conditions, the Siemon 10G 6A UTP, 10G 6A F/UTP and TERA end-to-end solutions satisfied the 802.3an standard stringent bit error ratio (BER) requirements for 10Gb/s performance.

The TERA S/FTP channel performed particularly well when compared to a typical category 6A UTP channel.

The TERA channel exhibited on average an SNR margin of 30.2 dB, which is approximately 6 dB better than a typical category 6A UTP channel.

These tests underscore the commercial viability of 10GBase-T by confirming overall compliance to full 802.3an system requirements as well as the interoperability of the Solarflare10 Gb/s electronics with the following cabling constructions recognized within IEEE 802.3an: Category 6A UTP, Category 6A F/UTP (screened) and Category 7 S/FTP (shielded), all with 100 meter reach.

The two companies will conduct testing on Category 6 UTP at 55 meters in the future.

"The extensive Siemon research and design capabilities were highlighted by these Solarflare results," states Daniel J Mullin, Director at Siemon Labs: "In addition to our 10G6A UTP solution, the verification of 10G 6A F/UTP and TERA systems confirms the market practicality of screened and shielded systems.

This is a great validation of Siemon expertise and significant investment in screened and shielded technologies over the years ".

According to Bruce Tolley, vice president of marketing at Solarflare: "the successful testing of the three Siemon copper cabling products paves the way for many enterprise data centers and networks to cost-effectively move to high-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet, it is another important step toward market adoption of this key technology".

Solarflare is the first company to publicly demonstrate 100-meter, standards-compliant 10GBase-T products, and the first company to deliver samples to customers.

These customers require 100 meter reach on their cabling system and demand support of and interoperability with the 10GBase-T standard.

Solarflare products undergo a rigorous test and validation process to ensure 10GBase-T compliance and 100 meter performance.

The 6 around one testing with Siemon shows how robust the 10Xpress solution is at 100 meters.

For more information on the Siemon comprehensive line of end-to-end 10GBase-T compliant solutions, including 10G 6A UTP, 10G 6A F/UTP and the industry's highest performing, most secure copper cabling solution - Category 7 TERA, please visit the website.

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