3Com and Foundry have the power

New powered LAN switches could help ease IP phone, wireless LAN base station deployment.

Foundry Networks and 3Com this week will debut products that deliver power over Ethernet to devices such as wireless LAN access points and IP phones - the latter addressing a critical concern among IP telephony skeptics.

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Foundry Networks and 3Com this week will debut products that deliver power over Ethernet to devices such as wireless LAN access points and IP phones - the latter addressing a critical concern among IP telephony skeptics.

With their announcements at the CeBit conference in Germany, the companies will be offering their first PoE products. Such products are designed to make it easier to deploy IP phones, wireless LAN access points, IP security cameras and other devices by delivering network connectivity and AC power over a single network cable.

In addition to its PoE gear, Foundry will announce a stackable Gigabit switch for small and midsize LAN cores. 3Com also will have new 803.11a gear on tap.

Foundry will debut two switches for powering IP devices over LAN cabling as well as new fixed-configured boxes for building modular Gigabit backbones.

Foundry will announce two FastIron Edge PoE wiring closet switches that could be used to deliver power and LAN connectivity to devices compliant with the 802.3af (PoE) standard.