Phil Hochmuth

Wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 802.11a are hot network topics, but more than 90 per cent of LANs are still hardwired. While the different cable types in LANs are fairly standard and unchanging, companies are using new technologies to make the most of their wiring infrastructures.

3Com announced a Gigabit Ethernet switch and Layer 3 switching software that could help IT professionals build and pay for a LAN backbone piece by piece instead of using one or two big pieces of iron in the core.

Foundry Networks updated its NetIron router with the goal of recasting the product as a core metropolitan-area network box instead of a competitor to the likes of Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks in the Internet core.

While Jumbo Frames technology remains in standards limbo, those who have used the technology for years continue to extol the virtues of stretching out the standard Ethernet frame size to boost Gigabit Ethernet throughput.

While IDC predicts that the market for Ethernet LAN and routing gear will rebound this year from a 2001 slump, sales figures for the fourth quarter of last year show the road to recovery could be long.

So you finally upgraded your FDDI ring to a Gigabit Ethernet backbone and added 1000Base-T network cards to your servers. You

Taking aim at enterprise voice-over-IP leaders Cisco Systems Inc. and 3Com Corp., Siemens AG last week unveiled several enterprise IP voice products aimed at helping traditional PBX users migrate to converged networks.

Nortel Networks Corp. and Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc. last week separately released software for call centres aimed at strengthening communication lines between call agents and customers.