TIA establishes new cabling engineering committee
By KATHLEEN RICHARDS
In an effort to streamline the standards process, the TR-41.8 Commercial and Residential Building Cabling Systems subcommittee gained engineering committee status as of the mid-February TR-41 User Premises Telecommunications Equipment Requirements meeting held in Sarasota, FL. The new engineering committee is TR-42, Commercial and Residential Building Cabling.
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Technical Standards Subcommittee (Arlington, VA) approved the split of TR-41 into two separate engineering committees in January. Former TR-41.8 subcommittee chairman Paul Kish, a senior product manager at nordx/cdt Corp., will serve as chairman of the newly established TR-42.
The reasons behind the split include a growing active membership and a need to focus exclusively on cabling issues. "The TR-41 engineering committee was responsible for cabling, but also terminal equipment and user premises equipment, so we were becoming very large, particularly the cabling group," says Kish. "When we would meet as a TR-41 plenary, the cabling issues would take up a lot of time and the other people looking at standards for equipment were really not interested in cabling issues, so it just worked out better to split the committees apart.
"It should make it more efficient because it removes one layer," adds Kish. "The decisions are now all made in TR-42 so we don`t have to go through the final stage of [TR-41 plenary] approvals."
With the restructuring, the five TR-41.8.X working groups were elevated to subcommittees and renumbered as TR-42.X; group names will remain the same. In addition, three new subcommittees were created. The TR-42.6 Cabling Administration subcommittee will focus on the EIA/TIA-606 labeling standard; it is chaired by Mel Lesperance of Ortronics. The TR-42.7 Copper Cabling Systems subcommittee is responsible for the specifications related to copper cable and connectors, to be published as EIA/TIA-586-B2. The subcommittee is chaired by Masood Shariff of Lucent Technologies. The TR-42.8 Optical Fiber Cabling Systems subcommittee will develop specifications for cables, connectors, and channels (EIA/TIA-568B3) and work on next-generation optical cabling issues. Tony Beam of AMP Inc. is chairman.
In another change effective with the February meeting, the TR-41.8.1 Commercial Distribution working group was divided into three subcommittees: 42.1, 42.7, and 42.8. The three subcommittees are responsible for the five pending addendums to the TIA/EIA-568A Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard, including Enhanced Category 5 (addendum 5) expected to be approved in the September/October time frame.
Going forward, engineering committee TR-41, User Premises Telecommunications Equipment Requirements, will serve as the industry forum for equipment standards and issues. Meetings for both engineering committees will take place simultaneously at the same location for the remainder of the year. q