Gigabit Ethernet Is Coming

Despite interoperability problems, Gigabit Ethernet is gearing up.

Stella Kao

There's no final standard yet, but Gigabit Ethernet will hold a prominent position all over this year's CeBIT. Expect to see implementations of the technology in new routers, switches, upli nks, and network interface cards (NICs).

Many networking vendors will use CeBIT 98 to roll out a wide range of Gigabit-only and Fast Ethernet-to-Gigabit Ethernet solutions offering up to 10 times higher throughput for backbones. New devices will include Layer 3 switching, Fast IP, Multiprotocol over ATM and FDDI, multicast/broadcast control, and quality-of-service or class-of-service capabilities.

A number of the high-speed devices on display at the show will support full routing and switching speeds of 1 million packets per second, while some that include Layer 3 switching capabilities can route at rates in excess of 100 million packets per second. Neo Networks claims to have achieved a whopping 400 million packets per second through an array of parallel RISC chips.

The hardware vendors' next step is to reduce costs. To make Gigabit Ethernet technology more appealing, a handful of start-up companies are working to drastically cut the per-port price of high-end ro uters. Budget-conscious IT managers will be happy to see new Gigabit Ethernet routers selling for less than $3000 per port. A couple of vendors even predict that the average price per port will soon drop to approximately $2500.

Besides high costs, proprietary hardware and missing interoperability are also hampering the growth of this industry. At CeBIT, companies such as Bay Networks, Cisco, and 3Com will attempt to counter the skepticism with interoperability tests at their booths.

At a Glance:

Gigabit Ethernet vendors are working on interoperability and cost reduction. Look for interoperability tests at the booths of 3Com, Bay Networks, and Cisco.

---

Four Challenges Facing Gigabit Ethernet

Four Challenges Facing Gigabit Ethernet
1.Interoperability between products must be improved, and insufficient integration with legacy systems must be corrected.
2.The maximum distance of multimode fiber connections must be extended, and the variability of latency must be reduced.
3.The quality-of-service concept must be enhanced to handle multiple data and traffic types.
4.The cost of switches and network interface cards (NICs) must be reduced.