Foundry this week at Interop 2006 Las Vegas brought out a series of stackable switches to support Power over Ethernet and offer the option to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet to connect to a network backbone.

The FastIron GS Series has members with up to 48 PoE ports. PoE can be used with VoIP-enabled phones, so that both the voice signal and the electrical power can travel over the same cable. It can also be used with wireless LAN access points.

The edge switches all support 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet on every port. Some support PoE on all ports, while others offer it as an upgrade option. The PoE complies with the IEEE 802.3af standard.

All offer 10 Gigabit Ethernet as an upgrade option. Foundry is offering a two-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet XFP module for the devices. The switches also have full power redundancy with hot-swappable power modules.

Gigabit Ethernet and PoE are both rapidly becoming standard technology for supporting end devices, so Foundry's move is not unexpected.

The GS Series includes 24-port and 48-port models. They support VoIP equipment with automatic voice VLANs and quality-of-service controls. They support the 802.1x standard for authentication, dynamic VLAN assignment, access control lists and MAC filters.

The GS Series switches can be ordered today. Two models have 24 ports, and two have 48. They all have four combination copper-fiber ports and one AC power supply. The 24-port models start at $4,000, and the 48-port models start at $6,000. A second power supply is a $1,500 option. The two-port 10 Gig module is $2,500.

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