Tel Aviv, Israel-headquartered Lannet Data Communications Ltd has introduced a new hub geared to data-intensive multimedia applications. The offering, the LANswitch hub, is intended to overcome the fact that Ethernet networks are not designed to support prioritisation of traffic to any particular workstation, which can lead to jerky images with full motion video, claims the company. It says LANswitch addresses this problem for networks wired up with untwisted shielded pair by delivering a guaranteed data-transfer rate of between 1.25Mbps to 10Mbps to each workstation, without affecting the physical structure of the underlying local network. LANswitch comprises one or more Lannet fault-tolerant LET-36 or LET-10 hubs with a range of new 10BaseTV dynamic switching Ethernet modules. These four, five and eight port 10BaseTV modules provide various options for scalable data transfer rates, delivering a guaranteed 1.25Mbps, 2.5Mbps or a full 10Mbps private ‘virtual Ethernet’ to each of the connected workstations. The company claims that 10BaseTV will be the world’s first network hub capable of supporting multiple concurrent video transmissions. 10BaseTV modules connect to the LET-36 or LET-10’s high speed 1.28Gbps cell-switched backplane, allowing LANswitch to provide up to 128 simultaneous 10Mbps dedicated 10BaseT Ethernet sessions. The backplane can also accept switched FDDI and switched 10BaseT so that, for example, 10 full bandwidth Ethernets could talk to one full bandwidth 100BaseT. There in no word yet on US pricing, but the LSE-108 10BaseTV module, with switching throughput of 10Mbps, providing dedicated bandwidth per user of 1.25Mbps, will retail for UKP2,000; the LSE-208, enabling 20Mbps switching throughput, with a dedicated bandwidth of 2.5Mbps per user, will cost UKP3,000; and the LSE-808, with a total switching throughput of 80Mbps and dedicated bandwidth per user of 10Mbps will be UKP5,000. All are available immediately.
