Product/Service

Gigabit Ethernet Adapters

Source: Alteon WebSystems, Inc.
The industry's first Gigabit Ethernet adapters, which can operate over the copper wiring found in many of today's building infrastructures, are now commercially available
Alteon WebSystems, Inc.y's first Gigabit Ethernet adapters, which can operate over the copper wiring found in many of today's building infrastructures, are now commercially available. The delivery of these copper-based server adapters eliminate the two key barriers that have inhibited the widespread adoption of Gigabit Ethernet technology -- price and compatibility with existing copper-based wiring systems.

The ACEnic 10/100/1000BASE-T copper adapters are approximately one-third to one-half the price of current Gigabit Ethernet fiber adapters and provide plug-and-play compatibility with today's commercial copper cabling systems. Category 5 copper wiring is installed in more than approximately 85% of today's office buildings.

Product Details:
The ACEnic 32/64-bit 10/100/1000BASE-T adapters are based on the company's application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology. This advanced network processing ASIC, designed and built by Alteon, integrates dual DMA channels, a PCI bus interface, a 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet MAC and two embedded 32-bit RISC processors into a single chip.

System drivers for all major operating environments are supported including Microsoft Windows(R) 2000 and Windows NT 4, Novell NetWare(R) 4.2 and 5, Linux and FreeBSD. All of these adapters, both fiber and copper, operate using the same drivers.

The tri-speed copper adapters are based on the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEEE) Gigabit Ethernet over copper standard (IEEE 802.3ab). The specification provides for the transmission of data at speeds up to 1000 million bits per second (Gbps) at distances up to 100 meters using four pairs of Category 5 (CAT-5) balanced unshielded twisted pair (UTP) copper wiring.

Pricing and Availability:
The Alteon ACEnic 10/100/1000BASE-T adapter with 512K of RAM and supporting Windows NT and Windows 2000 and Linux is currently shipping and priced at US$495.00. The 1MB version of the same adapter is priced at $695 and supports Unix operating environments. Both ACEnics are available now.

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