A group of 11 companies has formed the Gigabit Ethernet Alliance which, as its name suggests, aims to influence the development of the 1000Mbps Ethernet standard: the IEEE voted last month to develop a 1Gbps standard within its 802.z committee. While a finalized IEEE standard is not expected before the end of 1998, the Alliance is predicting pre- standard products within 12 to 18 months. The founder members are 3Com Corp; Bay Networks Inc; Cisco Systems Inc; Compaq Computer Corp; Granite Systems Inc; Intel Corp; LSI Logic Corp; Packet Engines Inc; Sun Microsystems Inc; UB Networks Inc and VLSI Technology Inc. The group is planning to encourage the IEEE to retain 10Mbps Ethernet’s CSMA/CD Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection protocol, although development work is still at a very early stage, according to Tony Lee, chairman of the Alliance and Sun’s representative in it. Lee added, however, that what the group would like to do is take advantage as much as possible of technologies such as Fast Ethernet and Fibre Channel and build on them and adapt them for 1Gbps Ethernet. Packet Engines Inc – which last October claimed to have implemented a 1Gbps Ethernet system – is said to have contributed greatly to the work already, which is under discussion. The Alliance has set out three aims that the IEEE has already laid out for the link distance of 1,000Mbps Ethernet: a multi-mode fibre optic link with a maximum length of 1,500 feet; a single-mode fibre optic link running to a mile, and a copper link running to at least 25 yards. Additionally, the IEEE is looking at support of at least 100 yards for Category 5 unshielded twisted pair. Although the Alliance has started life with 11 founders, it says it is keen to attract as many vendors as possible. Alliance members have been in talks with Digital Equipment Corp and IBM Corp – two major names notable by their absence – and the Alliance is confident that they will come on board. Even one division of Hewlett-Packard Co – which was notoriously opposed to the use of CSMA/CD within Fast Ethernet – is already involved according to Lee: the Optical Group, which produces physical fibre optic components, is already contributing, he says. In terms of its approach, the Gigabit Alliance is planning to base it on that of the Fast Ethernet Alliance: many of the Gigabit Alliance founders were also responsible for founding that group as well. Organizationally, there is to be a Steering Committee, a Technical Subgroup and a Marketing and Communications Subgroup. The Gigabit Alliance has five aims: to support the IEEE’s standardization activities; to contribute technical resources to help with development; to establish and demonstrate interoperability between different companies’ products; to provide two-way communications between suppliers and consumers and to encourage more vendors to join the alliance.
