Power over Ethernet in Reverse Gear

Power over Ethernet is around for quite some time now. It’s a convenient technology to supply network devices with electrical power over the ethernet cable. This allows you to boldly place your networking equipment where no power outlet dared to go … err … Actually, that’s only true if the said device is capable of receiving its power from the ethernet cable. If it isn’t, D-Link now has a smart solution: the DWL-P50 acts like a reverse converter for PoE. It takes a PoE powered cable as input and outputs clean ethernet on one port and 12 or 5V DC (selectable) on the other. Unfortunately, D-Link doesn’t specify the currents supported by the DWL-P50. Even worse is the fact that I currently don’t have any PoE capable equipment available to test the DWL-P50 with. D-Link to the rescue.