Allied Telesis AT-GS950/48 - Manual (Page 20)

Chapter 1: Overview
20
Ports
The AT-GS950/48 Gigabit Ethernet Smart switch features 48 twisted pair
ports and four SFP ports. See the following sections for more information:
ˆ “Twisted Pair Ports”
ˆ “Uplink Combo Ports”
Twisted Pair
Ports
The ports on the AT-GS950/48 Gigabit Ethernet Smart switch are capable
of 10 megabits per second (Mbps), 100 Mbps, and 1000 Mbps speeds and
are 10Base-T, 100Base-TX, and 1000Base-T compliant. In addition,
twisted pair ports feature 8-pin RJ-45 connectors.
The ports are IEEE 802.3u Auto-Negotiation compliant. With Auto-
Negotiation, the switch automatically matches the highest possible
common speed between each switch port and each end node. For
example, if an end node is capable of only 10 Mbps, the switch sets the
port connected to the end node to 10 Mbps.
Each twisted pair port on the switches can operate in either half- or full-
duplex mode. The twisted pair ports are IEEE 802.3u-compliant and Auto-
Negotiate the duplex mode setting.
Note
For the switch to set the duplex mode for each port correctly, the
end nodes that you connect to the switch ports must be configured
for Auto-Negotiation. Otherwise, a duplex mode mismatch can
occur, affecting network performance. For further information, refer
to “Duplex Mode”.
Each twisted pair port has a maximum operating distance of 100 m
(328 feet). For 10 Mbps operation, Category 3 or better 100 ohm shielded
or unshielded twisted pair cabling is required. For 100 or 1000 Mbps
operation, Category 5 and Enhanced Category 5 (5E) 100 ohm shielded
or unshielded twisted pair cabling is required.
The twisted pair ports are auto-MDI. They automatically configure
themselves as either MDI or MDI-X, which allows you to use either straight
through or crossover twisted pair cables to connect devices to the ports.
Uplink Combo
Ports
The four uplink combo ports (ports 45 through 48) consist of an SFP port
and a redundant twisted-pair port. The SFP ports support fiber optic
connectivity at 100FX and 1000 SX/LX, while the twisted pair ports
support 10/100/1000Base-T. If both ports of a combo pair are connected
to the network, traffic is switched through the SFP port and the
corresponding twisted pair port acts a redundant port in case of failure.