By Patrick McLaughlin
At its meeting in early February, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) TR-42 Telecommunications Cabling Systems Committee officially began the work of updating the ANSI/TIA-758 Customer-Owned Outside Plant Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard. The “B” revision of the standard was published in 2012; the recently commenced effort will result in the publication of the “C” revision - ANSI/TIA-758-C.
The TIA’s TR-42.1 Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling subcommittee will undertake the project. Previous revisions of the standard were developed by the erstwhile TR-42.4 subcommittee. The subcommittee has not established a timeframe for the standard’s completion. TIA develops standards in accordance with procedures established by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Among those procedures is to affirm, revise or withdraw a standard on a five-year schedule. When TIA-758-B was published in 2012, the TIA’s 568 standard series was in its “C” revision. Section 4.4 of TIA-758-B, titled “Recognized Cabling” cites TIA-568-C.2 (in reference to 100-ohm balanced twisted-pair cabling), C.3 (multimode and singlemode fiber-optic cabling) and C.4 (75-ohm coaxial cabling).
Since the time of that publication, the TIA’s 568 standards series has undergone its “D” revision. Additionally, two sets of specifications for cabling performance levels - Category 8 twisted-pair cabling and Om5 multimode fiber cabling - have been published. At the very least these updates will be worked into the 758 standard’s C revision.
In addition to the TIA revising its existing outside plant standard, BICSI has nearly completed work on an outside-plant standard of its own. A draft of BICSI D013, a forthcoming standard for general installation and implementation practices within OSP, is about 90 percent complete, the association reports. D103 is one of a suite of three OSP standards under development within BICSI. The others are D038, covering installation and implementation of OSP pole, anchors and guys; and D039, covering the installation of cabling into aerial pathways.
Please note the D013, D038, and D039 monikers that BICSI uses to describe these documents do not mean the respective standards will be identified as BICSI 013, BICSI 038, and BICSI 039. They are simply numeric identifiers that BICSI uses. As an example, the draft standard that was D012 ultimately was published as BICSI 006-2015 Distributed Antenna System Design and Implementation Best Practices.
These under-development OSP installation standards will be separate from BICSI’s Outside Plant Design Reference Manual (OSPDRM), which currently is in its 5th edition. That fifth edition was published in 2011. Describing the manual and its importance to cabling professionals, BICSI explains, “From its beginnings of supporting the telegraph, OSP cabling and infrastructure has evolved into the vital element that supports all voice and data communication globally. Even today’s cellular wireless networks are supported by a wide array of OSP cabling and infrastructure, empowering individuals to communicate as they need.
“Written by industry experts representing thousands of completed projects, the OSPDRM focuses on outside plant properties, with the detailed information contained applicable to all projects large and small. In addition to covering traditional infrastructure subjects such as cabling and pathways, the OSPDRM also covers items not typically found within interior design work, such as right-of-way, permitting and service restoration.”
Patrick McLaughlin is our chief editor.