NIS staff who attended the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) conference in Quebec City, Canada, reported back with this news from the Engineering Committee:
New standards approved
TR42.1 voted to publish the following revised documents, updated to reflect evolutions of technologies and current acceptable methodologies:
• ANSI/TIA-942-B, a revision of the Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers
• ANSI/TIA-1179-A, a revision of the Healthcare Facility Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard (Diane was the editor of this document and really enjoyed being able to blend healthcare background with current work).
• ANSI/TIA-568.0-D, a revision of the Generic Telecommunications Cabling for Customer Premises Standard
TR42.5 voted to publish ANSI/TIA-440-C, a revision of the Fiber Optic Terminology Standard.
TR42.7 voted to publish ANSI/TIA 568.4-D, a revision of the Broadband Coaxial Cabling and Components Standard.
Ongoing work involved to update the Education, Commercial, residential, and IBS standards
Update on NFPA 70 – NEC®
There are still concerns about alignment with the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) and TIA regarding heat dissipation characteristics associated with telecommunications cabling systems. There are significant differences in the results generated from actual testing by TIA members and those actually published in the latest version of NFPA 70 (The National Electric Code ® [NEC®]) concerning thermal properties and heat dissipation properties of balanced twisted pair cabling used to support power over Ethernet (PoE) applications.
A newly formed TR42 task group will study the 2017 code, and work to improve alignment and build collaboration between the organizations. The group will also develop public input* for the 2020 NEC code cycle, with a vision of:
- Harmonizing terminology in the context of NFPA 70
- Advance the generic cabling approach, supporting convergence of applications and equipment to use a common cabling infrastructure for multiple applications
- Supporting convergence of applications/equipment to use a common cabling infrastructure for multiple applications
- Adding informational references to TIA TR42 documents to strengthen linkages to structured cabling
- Improving harmonization and alignment of cable bundle ampacity requirements between NEC Articles 725 & 800 and TIA TSB-184-A with associated installation practices
Next steps
The next steps will be socializing the (Public Input) PIs with TIA TR42, and getting approval to add TIA TR42 in the organization fields. The goal is to enter the TR42-approved PIs into the NEC public input system before September 7, 2017. If additional PIs are submitted, the group will schedule meetings to discuss and recommend approval to TIA TR42; a letter ballot to approve any additional PIs will be issued in time for the September 7 due date.
*Public input will be limited to TIA TR42 suite of cabling infrastructure documents.
