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IP Telephony Drives in Power over Ethernet

Posted by timothy on from the but-it's-not-wireless dept.

GuitarNeophyte writes "The Channel Register states that although the idea for Power Over Ethernet has been around for a long time, the stage may finally be set for it to become an essential factor in our technical lives. One of the main reasons is because of the emergence of ip telephony. 'Telephones need to work in an emergency including when there is a power failure. Traditional telephones do, but IP phones will only do so if there is an uninterrupted power supply (UPS). The only practical way of guaranteeing power supply to a large number of IP phones is PoE.' Will IP telephones bring in PoE?"

15 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. No 911? Quote the VOIP reseller... by TimTheFoolMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...nevermore... nevermore....

    Tim

  2. Ethernet over Power? by GreatRedShark · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apparently, my cousin has Ethernet over Power, that was installed by The Internet Service Guy...

    It would be interesting to see what happens if you ran Ethernet over Power on a system powered by Power over Ethernet... who would win? an epic battle, to be sure! ...or maybe they would cancel each other out, and you'd just get regular ethernet? ...or maybe it would be like a divide-by-zero, and your NIC would explode? :P

    1. Re:Ethernet over Power? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      No! Don't do it. Your NIC won't explode... it'll *implode*! It'll become a singularity and suck your desk up and spit it out somewhere near HD 39801!

      Be forewarned! I tried it, and I lost my desk which was only to be confused by astronomers as heavenly body!

    2. Re:Ethernet over Power? by isny · · Score: 2, Funny

      Finally! The fabled perpetual motion machine!

    3. Re:Ethernet over Power? by FleaPlus · · Score: 3, Funny

      Apparently, my cousin has Ethernet over Power, that was installed by The Internet Service Guy...

      Does the cord for it look something like this?

      http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/

    4. Re:Ethernet over Power? by Ray+Radlein · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you could somehow combine the two, you might, at long last, realize the ancient dream of Power-over-Powerlines! Then we can return to tackling the thorny problem of delivering Ether via Ethernet.

  3. Virii by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I can't wait for the first virus that electrocutes the poor soul who has VOIP but forgot to get all of the hotfixes for Windows XP and still uses IE.

  4. Re:UPS in the Switch... by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 3, Funny

    Or you could just plug the switch into a UPS...

    Smoke much?

    --
    <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
  5. Re:Make little sense... by Seumas · · Score: 1, Funny

    Of course, don't forget to only put the wifi 911 nodes in affluent neighborhoods. No sense putting them into areas with high crime that you don't intend to respond to.

  6. What? No link to ThinkGeek? by Monte · · Score: 2, Funny

    I imagine we'll be seeing plenty of useless (but pretty) little blinkinlites and other silly gadgets built on RJ45 plugs, for keeping the dust out of unused router ports.

  7. PoE, EoP, oPE... by Beardydog · · Score: 2, Funny

    We've got to call those fighters back!

  8. Re:Wireless? by grozzie2 · · Score: 3, Funny
    For that we need to advance to power over wireless. It's not as big a step as most seem to think. Typical notebook has a 19V supply capable of 2.5 amps, and it's not fully used, so for round figures, lets call that 40 watts. Assuming you get a 25% efficiency in the conversion at the reciever, and you want to power 4 devices off a single access point, you will need 4*4*40=640 watts at 2.4 ghz. Those transmitters are already in mass production, currently in use for microwave ovens, so it's not even a large engineering or manufacturing challenge to get units in mass quantity. The only real issue is designing the reciever.

    But, one other detail, there will probably need to be a warning on the box, for use only by folks that have already HAD thier children.

  9. Power from a wall outlet ... how exciting by nicodaemos · · Score: 3, Funny

    Bah, I can't wait for POWF - Power Over WiFi. Now that would be pretty darn cool!

  10. Re:I think it will... by robfoo · · Score: 3, Funny

    I use this for my Power-over-Ethernet needs :)

    I'm not sure what standards it supports, but it's cheap to manufacture!

  11. Re:Make little sense... by Nutria · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've had a wireless phone for years, never a single problem during a blackout, it works fine.

    By wireless, do you mean cell phones or cordless phones?

    Cordless phones definitely "die" during a blackout.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1