In this episode of Inside Electronics, host Alix Paultre interviews Jeff Kring, Product Manager for Integrated Connector Modules at Bel, about Ethernet’s evolution. They discuss Base-T Ethernet’s ubiquity, how Power over Ethernet has extended its life, and the roles of cabling standards and IEEE speed standards.
Kring explains why 2.5G and 5G emerged as practical “fill-in” speeds that let buildings with Cat5e and Cat6 cabling gain more bandwidth without costly rewiring. He also covers PoE’s growing power needs for Wi-Fi base stations and security cameras, the importance of magnetics qualification, and how reference designs help ensure performance, emissions compliance, and interoperability.
The conversation closes with a look at future speeds like 25G and 40G Base-T, which exist as standards but lack market-ready chips.
An Army veteran, Alix Paultre was a signals intelligence soldier on the East/West German border in the early ‘80s, and eventually wound up helping launch and run a publication on consumer electronics for the US military stationed in Europe. Alix first began in this industry in 1998 at Electronic Products magazine, and since then has worked for a variety of publications in the embedded electronic engineering space. Alix currently lives in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Also check out his YouTube watch-collecting channel, Talking Timepieces.
