TR-42 Meeting Roundup: 3 New Standards Approved; Work Starts on 2 New Project Areas

At a meeting last week in West Palm Beach, Fla., TIA Engineering Committee TR-42, Telecommunications Cabling System, met in West Palm Beach, Fla., making great strides in the area of next generation cabling and continuing its efforts to develop high quality standards for telecommunications cabling.

The committee agreed to publish the following key standards:

• TIA-568-C.0-2, Generic Telecommunications Cabling for Customer Premises-Addendum 2, General Updates, an addendum that updates the following sections of TIA-568-C.0: Annex B regarding optical fiber polarity; the application tables in Annex D; Annex E on optical fiber testing; and a revision to the MICE table.
• TIA-570-C, Residential Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard, which specifies the performance of telecommunications cabling within related pathways and spaces for single- and multi-dwelling residential buildings. This standard applies to the cabling within or between structures and includes cabling within a single-dwelling unit and the backbone. It specifies cabling intended to support a wide range of telecommunications applications in the residential environment including voice, data, video, security, audio, and control systems.
• ANSI/TIA-1005-A, Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard For Industrial Premises, which specifies telecommunications cabling to support industrial premises applications (e.g., voice, data, text, video, industrial and building controls, security, fire alarm, imaging) while allowing for exposure to the wide range of environmental conditions expected in industrial premises (e.g., temperature, humidity, electrical noise, shock, vibration, corrosive gases, dust, liquids).)

The committee also started work in a few new project areas.

• Subcommittee TR-42.3 is starting work on addenda to TIA-569-C, Telecommunications Pathways and Spaces, which will address extended temperature and humidity ranged per ASHRAEs recent recommendations to the subcommittee. Once published, new cables will have to withstand the new measurements to comply with the standard.
• Subcommittee TR-42.16 began work on an addendum to TIA-607-B, Generic Telecommunications Grounding (Earthing) and Bonding for Customer Premises.

Some standards of interest to the cable installation community that are being released for ballot in the coming months are:

• TIA-942-A-1, Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers, Addendum 1 - Cabling Guidelines for Data Center Fabrics
• TSB-4947, Guidance for Adhesive Usage in Fiber Optic Components

TR-42.7 will be holding an interim meeting in April. (Stay current on all TIA Engineering Committee meetings with the TIA Standards Calendar.) The next full meeting of the committee will be held the week of June 4-8, in Dallas, during TIA 2012: Inside the Network Conference and Exhibition at the Gaylord Texan Hotel and Conference Center.

To learn more about how to participate in TIA standards development, contact Stephanie Montgomery at smontgomery@tiaonline.org.