Power over Ethernet

This section describes how to use the PoE feature.

A PoE device is Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) that delivers electrical power to a connected Pod Devices (PD) over existing copper cables without interfering with the network traffic, updating the physical network or modifying the network infrastructure.

PoE provides the following features:

• Eliminates the need to run 110/220 V AC power to all devices on a wired LAN.

• Eliminates the need to deploy double cabling systems in an enterprise significantly decreasing installation costs. Power over Ethernet can be used in any enterprise network that deploys relatively low-pod devices connected to the Ethernet LAN, such as: IP phones, Wireless access points, IP gateways, Audio and video remote monitoring devices.

PoE implements in the following stages:

• Detection—Sends special pulses on the copper cable. When a PoE device is located at the other end, that device responds to these pulses.

• Classification—Negotiation between the Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) and the Pod Device (PD) commences after the Detection stage. During negotiation, the PD specifies its class, which indicates maximum amount of power that the PD consumes.

• Power Consumption—After the classification stage completes, the PSE provides power to the PD. If the PD supports PoE, but without classification, it is assumed to be class 0 (the maximum). If a PD tries to consume more power than permitted by the standard, the PSE stops supplying power to the port. PoE supports two modes:

  • Port Limit—The maximum power the device agrees to supply is limited to the value the system administrator configures, regardless of the Classification result.

  • Class Power Limit—The maximum power the device agrees to supply is determined by the results of the Classification stage. This means that it is set as per the Client's request.