2/5/2007 -- Remember the Ethernet Alliance, that upstart industry group which launched last year with a mission to reinvigorate the world's most pervasive LAN technology?

The Ethernet Alliance, the membership of which comprises a veritable Who’s Who of the networking glitterati (its member roll includes Cisco Systems Inc., Extreme Networks, Intel Corp., 3Com Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Foundry Networks, Broadcom and others), was in the news again last week, claiming that a proposed Energy-Efficient Ethernet standard could help companies save a total of $450 million each year in the U.S. -- with even greater savings worldwide.

The IEEE 802.3 working group recently voted to support the formation of an Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE) Study Group. While a proposed EEE standard is still a long way off, analysts say its potential to reduce energy consumption is compelling. "With carrier Ethernet taking over as the de facto transport technology in next generation networks, enterprise devices and even consumer electronics, it would appear that if significant cost savings could be realized, EEE could indeed have a big impact on power consumption on a worldwide scale," wrote Glen Hunt, a principal analyst for carrier infrastructure with consultancy Current Analysis. In the absence of an empirical prototype, Hunt isn't completely persuaded by the promise of EEE, of course.

"The issue remains as to how much savings technology innovation can deliver and at what cost. There is generally a struggle throughout the technology lifecycle between speed and power consumption. With GigE and 10 GigE becoming the norm for access and network trunks respectively, and with 40 Gig and 100 GigE on the horizon, can there be a net reduction in overall power consumption while still meeting the expected quality of experience metrics that service providers' customers have grown to expect?" he asked.

Nevertheless, Hunt, for one, is optimistic. "The ability to reduce power consumption will, for the most part, lie with the ability to continue to develop the next generation of silicon that is inherently less power-hungry," he concluded, noting that as Nth-generation ASIC designs evolve, they typically boast increases in speed and density and a corresponding decrease in power consumption. --Stephen Swoyer