There is nothing more frustrating for the consumer or end-user than when they open up a product thinking it worked with a standard only to find that there are interoperability issues. This happens with lots of products, but it is particularly pervasive in Power over Ethernet (PoE) products. This is because the term PoE has evolved to be synonymous with IEEE 802.3 compliant Power over Ethernet standards (i.e. 802.3af or 802.3at). The problem arises because products are free to state they support PoE simply because they merge data and power on the same Category cable. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are IEEE 802.3 compliant PoE, or even interoperable.
