#1: Telcom Tips for 2021
Kent Lusted,
Ethernet
Alliance & Intel
Prior to 2020, I had my reservations that any modern society could function without going to a physical office, store, school or establishment on a regular basis. Yes, there was a communications framework in place for people, but it was patchy and mostly used in the off hours when the primary modes to businesses and schools were not in use. The global COVID-19 pandemic was a tipping point in the telecom industry as Earth’s citizens shifted to a remote model for nearly everything they do: work, education, recreation, entertainment, to name a few.
In 2021, the remote model shift will continue to fuel the massive telecom bandwidth demand to each person, enabling them to do amazing things wherever they happen to be. Work - Yes. School - Yes. Recreate - Yes. Entertain - Yes. Compute will move closer to the edge of the network for greater performance and we will see new Ethernet equipment, technologies and standards come into existence to deliver on the next generation of needs. The telecom infrastructure will be further pressed to the limit as machines and things take advantage of Ethernet networks (wireless personal area networks, Wi-Fi, wired fiber or copper cables) to do bigger and more important tasks in the background. And all of it must work together flawlessly to provide a consistent and predicable experience for the user.
My new expectation is that there is high bandwidth connectivity to everything, everywhere, all the time. Are you ready for it?
#2: Power over Ethernet
David Tremblay,
Ethernet
Alliance & HPE
Due to its intrinsic safety and lower cost wiring, adoption of Power over Ethernet (PoE) will continue to grow. The availability of high power PoE is spawning a creative explosion in new applications and non-traditional deployments. Applications such a lighting, Li-Fi, and large meeting room displays are growing in commercial buildings as well as in the home. We’re also seeing new use cases such as PoE to charge batteries in devices that provide higher levels of power or battery backup. This will lead to more applications around security or safety in devices that can function autonomously in the case of power loss. This, in turn, will lead to more applications in building and industrial automation.
Traditional PoE applications used to power Wi-Fi Access Points, security cameras, and IP Phones are commonly deployed in retail stores, restaurants, and office buildings as the go-to smart building infrastructure that unifies Ethernet data and power. With the increase in power delivery capabilities enabled by IEEE 802.3bt (PoE2), new use cases and innovative methods to deploy PoE are becoming widespread. The Sinclair Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas is a showcase for PoE technology being used to power lights, window shades, smart mirrors, and minibar operation throughout the hotel. The smart home market is also leaning on PoE technology to offer low cost, easy to deploy, and reliable solutions for families to work or attend school remotely while providing the flexibility to self-automate and control their home network along with ever expanding list of smart home devices.
While PoE has been adapted to two and four-pair Ethernet, it is likely we’ll see the debut of commercial products supporting power over Single Pair Ethernet (SPoE, aka “PoDL”) as early as next year. This will bring lower cost, simplified wiring, and longer distances for power and communications, turbocharging the PoE revolution. With so many variants of PoE out there, both systems integrators and end users will look for Ethernet Alliance PoE Certification to simplify their installation and provide a highly reliable PoE ecosystem.
#3: Single Pair Ethernet
Bob Voss,
Ethernet
Alliance &
Panduit
The future looks a lot like Operational Technology (OT) networks. OT networks monitor and control the profit-making assets of our businesses and ensure the comfort and safety of building occupants. For decades these important networks have been siloed from the rest of the business network footprint, due in part to their “built for purpose” nature and the use of legacy communications protocols that are not directly compatible with the Ethernet traffic elsewhere in the business network. The advent of Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) provides businesses with a means to make these important networks part of a cohesive Ethernet-based network, bringing powerful new benefits to the adopters.
SPE provides the last link in a chain of communications from the cloud to the network edge, all in a single protocol network. That in itself drives enormous value because now ALL information is available readily, easily transported and stored, unlocking huge data sets to power analytics. The transparency and availability of this information drives better and faster decisions for businesses. leading to higher levels of service for their customers.
Single Pair Ethernet also provides greater security than current legacy protocols, since Ethernet helps leverage all the cybersecurity benefits of IP networking. As many of the automation-focused Ethernet variants are Application layer protocols, businesses can deploy a single physical layer at the network edge, SPE, to support any of these variants they choose. In the near future, SPE will finally allow businesses to glimpse the “shop floor to top floor” vision that experts have been talking about for decades.
