Cisco doubles Catalyst Ethernet ports to 60 watts of juicy juice Networking giant Cisco Systems has cranked up the amount of juice its Catalyst 4500E switches can pump out over Ethernet to 60 watts – another step toward its goal of making its switches the throbbing heart of the modern office. The Catalyst 4500E switch was announced last October with 848Gb/sec of aggregate switching …
Even if all the power was delivered over a single pair that gives a total conductor cross section of 24.6mm^2 for 120 cables. 32A mains wiring gives 7.36kW @ 230V and needs only 4mm^2 cable. Even with the lower voltage and hence higher current (PoE is not _that_ low voltage to begin with) there is plenty of slack in there.
I have a friend that tests these sorts of thing for a living. He showed me an earlier version of the switch. Each port really can deliver the watts. Loading all of the ports ends up with a rather hot switch (it was a small one he showed me -- only 2Kw.
This is an example of "just because you can do something doesn't mean its necessarily a good idea"!
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