3Com Corp, which has come out fighting against the decision not to have its CSMA/CD technology developed within the IEEE 802.3 committee (CI No 2,224), reckons there will be re-run of the vote in the IEEE committee in November. According to Nigel Oakley, the San Jose company’s UK product marketing manager, administrative voting irregularities mean that the vote will have to be taken again in November – although this has not been confirmed by the IEEE – and pending that vote, the members of the alliance rallied by 3Com will continue submitting the specifications they develop to the 802.3 committee. Whether these will simply stack up on the committee’s doormat remains to be seen. No doubt to increase the pressure on the IEEE, 3Com has also given out a few sketchy details on its future product plans for the technology. It says that beginning next year, it will start to sell software-selectable 10Mbps-100Mbps Ethernet adaptors, hub and internetworking products. The Fast Ethernet Alliance rallies the companies that had already expressed support for CSMA/CD. Grand Junction Networks Inc, Intel Corp, LAN Media Corp, National Semiconductor Corp, Standard Microsystems Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc and SynOptics Communications Corp have all joined, and say that they will jointly be working on defining 100Mbps CSMA/CD specifications. The group’s line seems to be more or less to ignore the 802 committee’s vote not to develop CSMA/CD within the 802.3 committee.
