Upon release of the new IEEE 802.3bt standard, the IEEE introduced two new "Types" of PoE equipment. The addition of Type-3 and Type-4 equipment are most commonly associated with the addition of 4-Pair PoE and their available power increases of to up to 90 W sourced from a PSE port. However, the new PoE 2 Type-3 designation also applies to new 2-Pair PoE equipment as well. Most notably, the new 802.3bt standard supports a reduced T_MPS time (6 ms versus 60 ms) and a new feature called Autoclass, and by definition any device that supports these new features is designated as Type-3 equipment even if power is only provided over 2 pairs (one alternative pairset) in an Ethernet cable. Because the TPS23882B supports these new features including its use of the 100-ms long first class finger to identify itself as an IEEE 802.3bt PSE, it is officially classified as a Type-3 PSE even through power delivery is limited to 2 pair.

Please note that as the 802.3at standard created "Type-2" equipment that was fully interoperable with the previous PoE 1 Type-1 (802.3af) equipment, any new 802.3bt Type-3 equipment including the TPS23882B is fully operable with any existing PoE 1 Type-1 (.af) and Type-2 (.at) equipment.