Both SynOptics Communications Inc of Santa Clara, and Crescendo Communications Corp, Sunnyvale, have announced plans to deliver products conforming to the Fibre Distributed Data Interface over unshielded twisted pair draft standard under development by the American National Standards Institution. While Crescendo has not firmed up its plans enough to announce what specific products are to follow, SynOptics says that in the third quarter of the year it will launch two FDDI unshielded twisted pair hub products: the Model 3905 FDDI UTP Host Module is claimed to be compatible with all existing SynOptics System 3000 modules, and will list for UKP3,630. The Model 2915 FDDI/UTP workgroup intelligent hub will list for UKP9,680 for 14 FDDI ports – 12 unshielded twisted pair and two fibre. Both products are claimed to support single attachment and dual homing of critical FDDI stations using Category 5 unshielded twisted pair cabling. The new products are manageable through SynOptics’ Optivity network management system, including support for Expanded View, an application claimed to deliver port level monitoring and control capabilities. The ANSI Twisted-Pair Physical Medium Dependent Working Group is expected to finalise the draft standard for FDDI over unshielded twisted pair around October time.
