D-Link, a designer, developer and manufacturer of networking and broadband solutions, has just announced a line of environmentally friendly Gigabit switches for small and home offices. Everyday it seems another electronics company heralds the arrival of some green initiative and, as far as I’m concerned, that’s great. As you’ve probably noticed, these announcements are often greeted with a healthy round of skepticism, but as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, such a cynical take on initiatives like this is shortsighted.

So why has D-link come out with this green line? In their own words, it’s because “[p]ublic awareness and legislative action worldwide have created demands for improvements in energy efficiency for networking equipment.” Sounds pretty upfront to me.

In terms of specifics, D-Link's Green Ethernet implements special power-saving features that detect link status and cable length and adjust power usage accordingly.

• If there is no cable link or link partners turn off, Green Ethernet will put that port in a "sleep mode," reducing power used for that port and saving energy.
• Green Ethernet detects Ethernet cable length and adjusts power usage to save energy. This way, a port connected to a 20 meter cable only uses as much power as it needs, instead of using full power, which is only needed for 100 meter cables.

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