Copper cabling passes 10GBase-T parameters

Siemon's 10G 6A UTP, 10G 6A F/UTP and Category 7/Class F Tera copper cabling systems meet or exceed all 10GBase-T performance parameters dictated by the now ratified IEEE802.3an-2006 standard.Recent testing performed by Solarflare Communications confirms that Siemon's 10G 6A UTP, 10G 6A F/UTP and Category 7/Class F Tera copper cabling systems meet or exceed all 10GBase-T performance parameters dictated by the now ratified IEEE802.3an-2006 standard. Three separate Siemon cabling systems were individually tested at Solarflare's test facility. Using Solarflare's compliant IEEE802.3an-2006 10GBase-T 10Xpress PHY products, all tests were performed on 100m channel lengths, based on a worst-case six around one (6A1) alien crosstalk configuration.

The 10GBase-T standard requires that all PHY products claiming compliance with the standard perform on this 100m worst-case channel.

More specifically, the 6A1 configuration simulates a worst-case alien crosstalk environment, with six disturber cables bundled tightly around a seventh victim cable.

Full line rate 10Gbit/s bidirectional Ethernet traffic was launched on each channel.

A total of fourteen Solarflare 10GBase-T compliant PHY cards were required to simulate a fully stressed environment (ie seven PHY's used on each end of 6A1 configuration).

Under these challenging worst-case conditions, Siemon's 10G 6A UTP, 10G 6A F/UTP and TERA end-to-end solutions satisfied the 802.3an standard's stringent bit error ratio (BER) requirements for 10Gbit/s performance.

The Tera S/FTP channel performed particularly well when compared with a typical category 6A UTP channel.

The Tera channel exhibited on average an SNR margin of 30.2dB, which is approximately 6dB better than a typical category 6A UTP channel.

These tests underscore the commercial viability of 10GBase-T by confirming overall compliance to full 802.3an system requirements as well as the interoperability of Solarflare's10Gbit/s electronics with the following cabling constructions recognised within IEEE802.3an: Category 6A UTP, Category 6A F/UTP (screened) and Category 7 S/FTP (shielded), all with 100m reach.

The two companies will conduct testing on Category 6 UTP at 55m in the future.

'Siemon's extensive research and design capabilities were highlighted by Solarflare's results', states Daniel J Mullin, Director of Siemon Labs, the company's R and D arm.

'In addition to our 10G6A UTP solution, the verification of 10G 6A F/UTP and Tera systems confirms the market practicality of screened and shielded systems'.

'This is a great validation of Siemon's expertise and significant investment in screened and shielded technologies over the years'.

According to Bruce Tolley, Vice President of Marketing at Solarflare: 'The successful testing of Siemon's three copper cabling products paves the way for many enterprise data centres and networks to cost-effectively move to high-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet; it's another important step toward market adoption of this key technology'.

Solarflare is the first company to publicly demonstrate 100m standards-compliant 10GBase-T products, and the first company to deliver samples to customers.

These customers require 100m reach on their cabling system and demand support of and interoperability with the 10GBase-T standard.

Solarflare products undergo a rigorous test and validation process to ensure 10GBase-T compliance and 100m performance.

The six-around-one testing with Siemon shows how robust the 10Xpress solution is at 100m.