Standards Organisations Begin Work on Twisted-Pair Cabling Specs

ISO/IEC and TIA have formally initiated projects to develop performance standards for balanced twisted-pair copper cabling capable of supporting 40 Gb/s transmission.

Many of today’s data centres are propagating and transmitting data which is currently running at or exceeding 10 Gigabit. Typically, this is using over both optical fibre and balanced twisted-pair copper cabling in the infrastructure. This is where large numbers of gigabit links come together which in turn, link active elements of the network.

Active devices; e.g., servers, storage systems, continue to demand even greater network capacities, moving the 10 GbE to the next natural progression, which is 40 GbE.
 
It is the "network core" that requires even greater capacity which is why the major standards organisations are working behind the scenes to come up with yet another copper based balanced twisted pair cabling solution.  
Many manufacturers already claim to able to meet "pre ratified" 40 GbE, with some companies having been in the development stages since 2008, Both cable and connectivity solutions capable of supporting these speeds are now beginning to appear on the market.

It is now within the hallowed corridors that is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) where the decisions will be made and where ultimately, the standards will soon rbe elease d: these will be known simply as the 802.3ba standard - This standard will support data rates for 40 and 100 GbE specifically over twisted pair and optical fiber cabling.