RICHARDSON, Texas -- SYSTIMAX Solutions™ from CommScope (NYSE: CTV), the worldwide leader in structured connectivity solutions, in collaboration with SolarflareTM Communications, has confirmed that its SYSTIMAX® GigaSPEED® X10D Solution performed to their specifications in full-day certification test demonstrations of 10GBASE-T technology on 100 meter links held at Solarflare’s labs in Irvine, California. More exhaustive stress tests to continue the collaborative engineering effort are planned in the SYSTIMAX cabling labs in Richardson, Texas. The ability to utilize high-performance Ethernet connections for copper cabling is expected to lower the cost of 10 Gb/s networking, making it more accessible to data centers and enterprises.

The recently published IEEE 802.3an-2006 Standard for 10GBASE-T requires all 10GBASE-T physical layer chips to reach 100 meters on Category 6A cabling. The California-based tests were conducted using Solarflare's 10GBASE-T physical layer (PHY) evaluation boards and a 100-meter SYSTIMAX GigaSPEED X10D UTP channel in a worst-case, full-reach, 4-connector channel configuration (as specified in the TIA: Addendum 10 for Category 6A and ISO/IEC 11801: 2002 Amendment 1 for Class EA draft standards). A “six-around-one” configuration was utilized, with six disturbing cables tightly bundled around one “victim” or “disturbed” cable. The 10GBASE-T signals were launched through a generator at the standard XAUI interface to the PHY evaluation boards. The signals from the receive packets, or frames, at the far end transceiver were compared to those from the send frames. 10Gb/s Ethernet traffic was carried simultaneously on all six disturbing channels, simulating a worst-case environment for alien crosstalk. There were no errors detected during the certification demonstrations on channel lengths up to 100 meters.

CommScope Inc.