My line of APC surge suppressors got invented because someone got hit by a storm at their NOC and everything was fried. And everything was protected by the APC rack mount surge suppressor. They sent me the cards and asked me to see why they didn’t work.
I was already in the surge suppressor business at that point and I did analyze the card and sent them a report. They asked me if I could make one of the same form factor that actually did work. I did that the rest is history. I have been working hard to edge closer to something that is functional on 10 Gbps circuits. I test every design on a TIA CAT6A Perm Fixture test. Getting dangerously close to passing that spec. In doing so, all the traces are now balanced differential pair RF striplines with controlled impedance and length matching etc. It has not been easy. I recently purchased the latest APC surge protector that some sites claim to be good to 10 Gbps. I discovered little has changed since the early days and there is no way in hell it can do 10 Gbps. The return loss and NEXT are horrible at the higher speeds. I am surprised it even works well at 1 Gbps. I really want to have a comparison chart on my website comparing my stuff with theirs. But I worry about several items: The testing is not done by an independent third party. (I might be fudging the data...) I don’t want any product slander letters from their lawyers. I really don’t want them to re-design the product so it works (better). I guess I can publish the technical test specs with a comparison to an un-named similar product. That seems silly as there are only two manufacturers that I know of that makes cards that fit that rack.
