Power-Over-Ethernet Mythbusting

The .e4 blog has a good new post on power-over-ethernet, which I see as an often overlooked area of SOHO VoIP. It goes into some detail P.O.E. network switches, power management and mid-span P.O.E injectors.

Just last week we suffered a power outage that took down my entire office for about two hours. That is, it took down everything that wasn’t on the UPS. At the time I was on a tech support call with a customer. Happily, my IP650 and all the core network components get UPS power, some via P.O.E.. The UPS power only lasted about 45 minutes, but that was enough to let me resolve my tech support situation.

While some of our larger offices have P.O.E. capable network switches I use a couple of simple single-port mid-span power injectors from Aastra. Why? They’re simply a better, and more cost effective solution for my small office. I only need to power a couple of devices over the ethernet, just my Polycom desk phones. However, I need gigabit ethernet bandwidth in a number of places. POE capable gigabit switches were on the expensive side when last I reworked the office network. In contrast, single port power injectors can be had for around $40 each.