HP stacks power

HP this week shipped two stackable switches that provide power over Ethernet for IP phones, wireless access points, Web cameras and any other devices that require electrical power and Ethernet signals to be delivered over the same wire.

The HP ProCurve Switch 2626-PWR and Switch 2650-PWR provide up to 15.4 watts of power per port. The 2626-PWR has 24 ports of 10/100M bit/sec Ethernet and two ports that can be used for Gigabit Ethernet uplinks or fiber-optic connections. The 2650-PWR has 48 ports of 10/100M bit/sec Ethernet and two ports for Gigabit uplinks or fiber optics. The switches are touted as non-blocking.

Power over Ethernet, specified by IEEE 802.3af, is increasing in popularity as voice over IP grows. As with traditional phones, users don’t want to have to have two separate wires for power and voice signals.

The smaller switch provides a full 15.4 watts on all of the 24 ports of Fast Ethernet, while the larger switch can provide up to that amount per port, with an average of 7.5 watts on all 48 Fast Ethernet ports.

In addition to the support for power over Ethernet, the switches offer IEEE 802.1X, RADIUS, SSL and other security functions; up to 30 port-based virtual LANs; and 802.1p traffic prioritization.

HP’s networking business is growing rapidly, according to Dell’Oro Group, which recently said HP’s switch port shipments in the third quarter were up 44.6% over the same period last year.

The switches can be “virtually” stacked with other HP switches, meaning that a single IP address can be assigned to up to 16 switches on a network.

The 2626-PWR lists for $2,600, and the 2650-PWR lists for $4,900.