Synoptics Communications Inc, 3Com Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc have come out in support of 100Mbps Ethernet. Pat Conlon, product marketing manager with 3Com’s network adaptor division said that the companies were not involved in joint research, but were laying out their shared high-level goals. These include a commitment that the Ethernet MAC Media Access Control layer and CSMA/CD protocols should be left untouched to the extent that this is compatible with their scaling to higher speeds; that the technology should be backwardly compatible – allowing for dual-standard 10Mbps-100Mbps Ethernet adaptor boards, and that the technology will run over all grades of existing structured wiring systems. The news also solved the small mystery of how Ron Crane and his tiny LAN Media Corp could hope to compete against the likes of Hewlett-Packard Co and AT&T Co at next month’s IEEE 802.3 meeting: LAN Media Corp is a consultant to 3Com and the two companies are working very closely. Peter Tarrant, group manager for local network communications products at Synoptics, confirmed that there is no particular technology component to the joint announcement: the main objective, he said, is to provide a low-cost migration path from 10Mbps and get a good draft standard out by the end of next year, with the minimum of fuss. There are a number of market acceptance reasons, he acknowledged, people know what Ethernet is and all we want to do is speed it up by 10. As for the degree of co-operation between the various companies, Tarrant says I believe that the industry learned its lesson with FDDI over copper and doesn’t want to go through that again.
