I just recently learned that the majority of 802.11n products in design will likely out pace the current 13-15 watts of power provided by the 802.3af specification. It seems the IEEE is already working on 803.at, a new specification labeled “PoE+” by some.

What does this mean for the thousands of PoE (802.3af) ports already deployed throughout organizations?

Here’s a good article, A Look at POE Plus, in Network Computing by Peter Morrissey.

There are also some interesting articles over at Network World regarding 802.11n.

I’m not sure about everyone else out there but I won’t be rushing to deploy 802.11n or 802.3at gear anytime soon. We’ve actually standardized on using PoE capable network switches throughout the network going forward. The price cost between a PoE switch and a non-PoE switch is almost negligible when you consider the time and effort required to replace that switch in the future if PoE is required for some new application.

If you’re seriously thinking about deploying 802.11n you’ll need to consider how you’re going to power those devices.

Cheers!