Gigabit Ethernet will move out of the lab and into the computer networking market this year, according to exhibitors at the Networld+Interop show in Tokyo.
Karen Oddey, British-based director of marketing for 3Com stackable systems, said at last week's show that industry analysts expected Gigabit Ethernet spending to surpass US$1 billion by 2000.
3Com anticipated its first products would be ready before the end of the year.
She expected the big players such as Cabletron, Cisco, Bay and 3Com would be the major Gigabit Ethernet providers and predicted that none of the Gigabit Ethernet start-ups would emerge as Fore Systems did three years ago with the early adoption of ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) networks.
The industry anticipates there will be one million ports shipped for Gigabit Ethernet in 2000 and the cost per port will fall from current costings of $2,500 per port to $1,000.
She cited figures from Data Communications magazine which said about 58 per cent of companies looking to upgrade bandwidth were looking to combine ATM and Gigabit Ethernet in a network design. A company such as 3Com that could provide system-wide bandwidth monitoring and services would offer a more reliable Gigabit Ethernet implementation than the smaller companies.