Best, the Netherlands, July 2009 - Edimax Technology (TSEC: 3047), today announced the availability of a new PoE Web Smart Fast Ethernet switch series which consists of an 8 port desktop switch (ES-5808P) for small to medium sized businesses and a 16 port rackmount switch (ES-5816P) for medium to large networking environments. These new cost-effective switches are equipped with respectively 8 and 16 integrated 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) ports.

Both switches feature PoE to simplify the installation of PoE devices as PoE eliminates the requirement for a dedicated electrical outlet to power these devices. This provides users the flexibility in installing PoE devices where AC power is difficult to access and therefore enables them to lower installation cost. Both switches provide Smart features including Quality of Service (QoS) features which are suitable for today’s multimedia applications. In addition, they support basic network monitoring tools, such as port mirroring which helps to improve the network efficiency and help track network errors or unusual packet transmission, without interrupting the dataflow. Through a password protected web based interface, administrators can setup VLAN’s to segregate traffic and QoS to prioritize mission-critical data, such as real-time voice or video packets. Thanks to these features the switches offer extra protection on the network edge.

All ports support auto-MDI/MDI-X to automatically detect the type of cable when connecting the switch to a computer or router. This eliminates the need to crossover or parallel cables. Furthermore, the ports independently negotiate for the best speed and Half or Full-Duplex mode, with up to 200Mbps of bandwidth per port in full-duplex. Due to the non-blocking wire-speed, the ES-5808P and ES-5816P receive and forward network traffic seamlessly and are able to run at full wire speed without any loss of packets or cells. The Store-and-Forward architecture prevents damaged packets from being passed on into the network and maximizes network performance.