The Ethernet Alliance today announced that the IEEE P802.3at task force has created IEEE P802.3at/Draft 3.0 and has submitted it to the IEEE 802.3 working group ballot for technical review of the draft standard. This task force expects to complete standard ratification by 2009.

Part 1 of this series covered VoIP basics and introduced the topic of Quality of Service. This time, we look at Traffic Shaping and Power Considerations.

Hawking Technologies today announced the release of its HPOE1 Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) Adapter Kit. The new, 2-in-1 Injector-plus-Splitter Adapter Kit delivers both power and data over standard Ethernet cables.

The HPOE1’s splitter unit has three adjustable power settings – 5V, 7.5V, and 12V - for compatibility with a wider range of network devices and works with both wired and wireless Ethernet-enabled network devices.

The HPOE1 is available now at an MSRP of $49.99.

D-Link today announced that it will soon add wireless management features to its DES-1228P 24-Port 10/100 smart switch with PoE. The new features will support the upcoming DWL-3140AP, a small, "smoke detector-sized" access point.

Centralized AP management features will include WEP, WPA and WPA2 security, configuration templates, quick discovery of APs, AP mapping utility, full-time AP status controls, AP load balancing and the ability to maintain all AP traffic history and generate reports with statistical diagrams.

NETGEAR today announced the ProSafe 24 Port 10/100 Smart Switch with Four Gigabit Ports and 24 PoE Ports (FS728TP).

The new switch features 24 10/100 ports which each support 802.3af PoE with a total power budget of 195 watts. There are also two combination gigabit copper/SFP slots for optional fiber connectivity and two 10/100/1000 gigabit Ethernet ports. Management methods include a web-based admin interface, NETGEAR's ProSafe Network Management Software or other SNMP-based (SNMP v1, v2 and v3) management software.

Other features include Access Control List (ACL) filtering, 802.1x port authentication, enhanced QoS for prioritization of voice traffic, rate limiting, and IGMP snooping.

The FS728TP is available now at $630 suggested list.