The Telecommunications Industry Association has published three new cabling standards.

The standards are:

* Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard - Part 1: General Requirements, Addendum 2, Grounding and Bonding Specifications for Screened Balanced Twisted, Pair Horizontal Cabling, TIA-568-B.1-2 (addendum No.2 to TIA/EIA-568-B.1),

* Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard - Part 1: General Requirements, Addendum 3, Supportable Distances and Channel Attenuation for Optical Fiber Applications by Fiber Type, TIA-568-B.1-3 (addendum No. 3 to TIA/EIA-568-B.1),

* Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard - Part 1: General Requirements, Addendum 4, Recognition of Category 6 and 850 nm Laser-Optimized 50/125 æm Multimode Optical Fiber Cabling, TIA-568-B.1-4 (addendum No. 4 to TIA/EIA-568-B.1).

TIA-568-B.1-2 specifies additional requirements for grounding (earthing) and bonding of installed screened balanced twisted-pair horizontal cables and connecting hardware used within a commercial building environment.

TIA-568-B.1-3 applies to the supportable distances and channel attenuations for optical fiber applications by fiber type. It supplements the information contained in table E-1 of ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.1. Two new applications (10/11BASE-SX and 10G Ethernet) and one new fiber type (850-nm laser-optimized 50/125-æm multimode fiber) are addressed in E-1.

TIA-568-B.1-4 recognizes balanced twisted pair Category 6 cabling and 850 nm laser optimized 50/125 æm multimode optical fiber cable by reversing sub-clauses 4.4, 4.5, 5.3 and 11.22 of TIA/EIA-568-B.1.

TIA-568-B.1-2 was created by TIA TR-42.1 Subcommittee on Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling and released in February. TIA-568-B.1-3 and TIA-568-B.1-4 were created by TIA TR-42.8 Subcommittee on Telecommunications Optical Fiber Cabling System and also released in February.

The TIA is based in Arlington, VA. For more information visit www.tiaonline.org.