Last week saw the official launch of the Ethernet Alliance, a consortium of vendors aiming to help with interoperability testing of Gigabit Ethernet over copper (10GBase-T) equipment, develop 100 Gigabit Ethernet technology, and influence emerging standards for residential links based on Ethernet Passive Optical Network (Epon).

The 18 founder members include Intel, 3Com, Sun Microsystems, Force10 Networks, Foundry Networks and Samsung. They will promote Power over Ethernet technology and push Ethernet beyond traditional networking into consumer devices, including home audio and video equipment.

The alliance also hopes to influence the way that Ethernet standards proposals develop as they go through the lengthy Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) proposal and ratification process.

“In the past we’ve formed alliances around specific technology efforts going on in the IEEE, but that approach is not very efficient,” said Ethernet Alliance president Brad Booth, referring to previous efforts such as the Gigabit Ethernet Alliance and the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance.

While the Ethernet Alliance does not yet have an official relationship with the IEEE, it is “looking to establish a relationship with their corporate advisory group,” Booth added.

Some question how far the Ethernet Alliance can influence new standards when so many key networking vendors, including Cisco, are not members. This heightens the likelihood that rival proprietary, and probably non-interoperable, Ethernet specs will emerge to make buying decisions more confusing for users.