The Power over Ethernet market seems to have a bit more "juice" in it recently (sorry about that). I am hearing more about this nascent market and have spoken to a few people that have used the technology and are happy with it. To me it is counter-intuitive that PoE will be easily adopted on a large-scale basis but many people thought the same of broadband over cable and I have had a number of letters from angry professional engineers who worked in cable plants in the mid -nineties telling me the cable industry would never figure out broadband. Here is the most recent release I have received on the topic:

Frederick, MD (PRWEB) June 19, 2005 -- SEI, Inc, a leader in inline telecommunications powering, has received a non-exclusive license to manufacture and market Power over Ethernet (PoE) solutions under U.S. patent number 6,476,608 from PowerDsine. This patent forms the basis of the IEEE 802.3af powering standard both for the powering algorithms inherent in the standard and also for the delivery of device power over the Ethernet in using the spare pair.

As part of the license agreement, SEI, is authorized to manufacture and sell Midspan PoE and related products utilizing the intellectual property referenced in the patent, both in the US and internationally. Additionally, this license extends to the further resale, installation, and use of the intellectual property in US patent number 6,476, 608 with SEI licensed products.

"It is vital that our distribution channel and end users understand the breadth and scope of the license in that they are now protected against any potential infringement suits in the deployment of the SEI Juice Box PoE units by a third party patent holder in this rapidly growing market," said Martin Grolnic, President of SEI.

This patent addresses an Ethernet LAN, in which "power enabled" elements are detected so that current limited power can be distributed safely via spare pairs of the data Ethernet cabling infrastructure to those elements without effecting legacy devices. The patent covers PoE Midspan products that connect to an Ethernet switch in order to PoE-enable an enterprise network.

About System Engineering International (SEI):
SEI is a thirty-year-old telecommunications power company headquartered in Frederick Maryland. SEI has been designing, manufacturing and supplying premise based power systems to Telco service providers and enterprise end users in the digital Centrex market. SEI power equipment now powers over 1,000,000 ISDN phones. With the advent of VoIP, SEI has introduced its line of "Juice Box" midspan powering units that have the ability to provide their own battery backup. SEI is a participant in the IEEE 802.3af task force on PoE. For more information please visit SEI at www.seipower.com