Characterization of Alien-NEXT in 10GBASE-T systems

The latest proposed Ethernet standard is 10GBASE-T or 10 Gigabit Ethernet, which achieves a data rate of 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps). This is intended to meet the ever-increasing demand for data rate and bandwidth. The high frequencies involved in the 10GBASE-T standard give rise to a new type of crosstalk in data cables, which was not an issue in earlier lower data rate Ethernet standards. This has been named alien near-end crosstalk (ANEXT). ANEXT has been predicted to be one of the major impairments for 10GBASE-T systems. An innovative technique to measure ANEXT in 10 Gigabit Ethernet systems is proposed in this paper. A novel model for ANEXT is developed on the basis of measurement data obtained from experiments performed in a laboratory environment. Experiments were also performed to measure ANEXT at the connectors for which a separate set up using patch panels was employed. The measurement results of the different experiments were used to design the proposed model for ANEXT. Several characteristics of ANEXT are also proposed