Phihong's Business Focus

With more than 2 million square feet of manufacturing space, Phihong's wholly-owned and operated facilities are ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 certified. These world-class manufacturing facilities ensure timely delivery, quality, price and strict compliance with customer and government agency requirements and quality demands.

Phihong measures success by its commitment to quality and to its customers. With sales and support facilities in North America, Europe and Asia, Phihong provides distribution logistics, application engineering and local pre- and post-sales support to its customers.

Future-proofing your network environment – Midspans.com

Successfully future-proofing your network environment includes achieving cost and functional efficiencies, particularly in today’s economy. A balanced network needs to provide compatibility, expandability, and flexibility to support a vast number of new and emerging Ethernet devices with various power requirements. The most effective and practical solution is “power-on-demand” midspan technology.

Originally PoE switches were being deployed to power low-wattage endpoints such as VoIP phones, wireless access points, and entry-level IP security cameras. Today, many of these devices have evolved into more advanced solutions with specific power requirements. To handle these higher-power devices, the old approach was to endure a “forklift upgrade” and buy new PoE switches at a considerable cost to meet these higher power requirements. But it’s actually more efficient and less costly to separate data and power devices keeping a best-in-class business switch for IP needs and supplementing it with best-in-class midspan technology to power the endpoints. This achieves full-power on every port, gains support for both the legacy PoE standard (IEEE802.3af) and the higher-power IEEE802.3at standard, while providing greater flexibility for 75% less than the cost of replacing a business-class switch.

Today, most PoE-enabled switches rely on power management to share available power across the switch ports. Switch designers made the assumption that no one needed the full 15.4 watts per port specified in the IEEE 802.3af standard. The standard also specifies the maximum power consumed by a powered device is 12.95 watts to compensate for line loss.

Not Enough Power for Ports

If a bank’s 24-port L2+, 195-watt, PoE-enabled switch uses 40 watts to power the switch, there are 155 watts of power left to use across the 24 open ports. If the bank deploys 10 IP cameras using 7 watts each, the switch provides 70 watts to power the cameras with 85 watts remaining to share across the open 14 PoE ports. When the bank expands by deploying 8 more cameras with pan and tilt capability, the new cameras require 13 watts each for a total of 104 watts (only 85 watts available). Even though you have enough available ports, the switch cannot power all 18 cameras. Based on the old “forklift upgrade” premise, this would require the purchase of another L2+ 24-port PoE switch. But a $500 midspan can provide more functionality with greater flexibility for even further expansion. Why spend more to get less?

The Preferred Choice: Power-on-Demand Midspans

The practicality of letting a switch do network switching while utilizing a midspan to provide power-on-demand is obvious when considering devices beyond basic cameras. In the case of powering full-function outdoor security cameras, the number of ports is no longer the issue. If each camera requires 12W of power, it’s almost certain that a PoE-enabled, 195W switch will run out of available power before it runs out of ports.

Power management works when distributing different loads of power to specific ports on a PoE switch, but is pointless if there is not enough power for all the ports. Rather than utilizing power management in a switch, the answer is a 400W midspan that can cost-effectively deliver 15.4 watts of power on every port and provides for instant network expansion. If a 400W midspan sells for under $500, why pay $2,500 to $5,000 for a switch, only to get 24 ports and 195 watts with no additional switching benefits?

Not All Midspans Are Created Equal

When the time comes to future-proof your network, all midspans are not the same.

• Select a best-in-class midspan that was designed and manufactured by a proven power supply company that understands power.
• For better quality and cost control, select a midspan manufacturer that manufactures it’s own product rather than outsourcing across the globe.
• For the best pricing structure, select a manufacturer that designs, manufactures and tests its products in-house rather than relying on a third party manufacturer.
• Select midspans designed around an open silicon platform allowing them to operate with multiple-vendor PoE chips.

A midspan that offers full-power per port is the best choice for future-proofing a network because no matter what the end-device requirements, the power is available. As more devices are supported by increased standards, midspans provide options, flexibility, and cost savings. It’s time to talk to the leader in advancing PoE technology—Phihong, the name behind Midspans.com.

Phihong
48607 Warm Springs Blvd.
Fremont, CA 94539
(P) 510-445-0100
(F) 510-445-0200
www.phihong.com
Ka Yue Kwok, Phihong Marketing Assistant
kwok@phihongusa.com