Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) port shipments in the third quarter made up over 20 per cent of worldwide Ethernet switch port shipments, according to Dell'Oro Group.

Gigabit Ethernet PoE port shipments increased almost 80 per cent when compared to the same quarter last year. Enterprises are accelerating purchases of Gigabit PoE as they expand their networks to support converged voice and data and "future proof" for speed as prices for Gigabit PoE continue to decline, according to Dell'Oro.

Cisco and Nortel, leaders in sales of IP phones that drive PoE deployments, both contributed to the record PoE shipments in the third quarter, Dell'Oro said.

The Ethernet switch market grew to a record $US4.8 billion in the period, Dell'Oro said, an increase of 12 per cent over last year's third quarter.

The overall market was driven in part by strong growth in the shipment of Ethernet ports that sport basic management features at aggressive price points. Leading vendors of these switches, which fall between fully managed and unmanaged switches and can be monitored from a Web GUI instead of a command line interface, include 3Com, D-Link and NetGear, according to Dell'Oro.

The third quarter was the 17th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth for Ethernet switch port shipments, Dell'Oro said.