The results of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineer’s 802.12 working group ballot on the 100VG-AnyLAN specification (CI No 2,471) are now in. As expected, the proposal has been approved. The next step is an Institute 8023 Sponsor Ballot authorisation in November, in which case, the specification should be an IEEE standard before March 1995. The draft is said to incorporate support for the Demand Priority Access Method on which the standard is based; network management; and transmission over Categories 3, 4, and 5 unshielded twisted pair, and fibre. The working group is now looking to the future and has drawn up a preliminary agenda for future enhancements: these will include redundant uplink support; full duplex operation; burst transmission mode; Asynchronous Transfer Mode local network emulation support and higher-speed operation – with 400Mbps and 800Mbps suggested. Work on these is also scheduled for November, but there is no time-scale for its completion.
