PoE (power over ethernet)…still not too sure about this. Never really took off in days past and to be honest, I am still not sure that VoIP is enough by itself to make this push into mainstream just yet.

IP enabled devices like telephones and surveillance cameras that are always on need power, and power means cables. So although most IP devices have the potential to attach to a wireless data network, they can never be truly wireless because of the need for power.

But for such devices the power requirements are low. Low enough that just like traditional telephones, both the power and service can be provided by the same cable. This is the concept behind PoE – delivery of low voltage power to a device over a standard Ethernet data cable.

This is not a new concept, the idea has been around for years, but take up has been limited. One reason for this has been the lack of standards, but this has changed. The 802.3af standard, agreed a few years ago, is now being widely adopted. Cisco, the leading supplier of data networking products and a major supplier of IP devices, switched from its own proprietary way of doing things soon after the standard was introduced, and many other vendors have now followed suit. This allows for interoperability between different products, allowing resellers to put together proposals based on components from a range of suppliers. [Read the rest]