The flood of new communication products from Hewlett-Packard Co continues unabated, and the company has now filled out the low and high ends of its 100VG-AnyLAN hub range. At the low-end is the AdvanceStack 100VG Hub-7E. This comes with six AnyLAN unshielded twisted pair RJ45 ports and one RJ45 uplink port for connection to other hubs. It will ship in May for $1,000. Next up is the 100VG Hub-7M targeting workgroup-interconnect applications and has five transceiver bays designed for use with a new range of 100VG transceiver modules for different cabling media. Due in June, it will cost $2,100. The new transceivers – for unshielded and shielded twisted pair and Fiber optic cabling – are to cost $200, $300 and $500 respectively, and all will ship by August. One of the 7M’s ports can also be configured as a redundant uplink or downlink port, while the primary uplink port can access a slide-in transceiver for fibre optic communications. The company also unveiled a new Simple Network Management Protocol Bridge Module. Also designed for installation in the transceiver bays, this is said to combine SNMP management with a 10Mbps/100Mbp bridge. It will cost $1,400 when it ships in May. Finally, it announced the 100VG Hub-14: providing 12 fixed RJ45 downlink ports, the hub includes a modular port – which can be configured as a redundant uplink or downlink port, for unshielded or shielded twisted pair or fiber optics with the new transceivers. Due in May, it will cost $2,160.
