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Wiring for the future

Residential & Small Business Cabling
(adapted from material supplied by ICC)

New cabling requirements for residential communications and automation are being developed to keep pace with dramatic growth and the demand for new services. New service offerings and emerging high bandwidth applications for residential end-users, SOHO’s (Small Offices/Home Offices) are proliferating at an unprecedented rate, placing increasing demands on in-home "networks". Also, home automation, entertainment, fire detection, control, data and security are essential considerations for virtually all new home planning, design and construction. To achieve successful and reliable performance, the design of the cabling infrastructure must be based on industry accepted standards.

A New Standard With Major Upgrades

Until now, TIA-570 (May 1991) provided recommended minimum standards for Residential and Light Commercial Telecommunications Cabling. Today there is a new proposed standard from the Telecommunications Industry Association, TIA-570-A. It contains many deletions, changes and additions and is a major upgrade from TIA-570.

Recognizing the growing importance of residential cabling market alone, Light Commercial cabling is not included in TIA-570-A. Also, definitions and terminology have been changed to be more consistent with other widely followed telecommunications cabling infrastructure standards.

TIA-570-A defines minimum "Grades" of Residential Cabling to serve today’s requirements and, more importantly, the demands of the future. The table below outlines the new, proposed application-based Grade selections defined in TIA-570-A.

Grade 1 is comprised of a minimum of one category 3 unshielded twisted pair (UTP), and one 75 ohm coaxial cable. Grade 2 requires one or more category 5 UTP cables, 75 ohm coaxial cable plus, as an option, optical fiber. Another notable change is that the eight position, eight conductor RJ45-type jack (female), T568A pin-pair configuration (see diagram), is the only outlet/connector now recognized for either category 3 or category 5 UTP cabling. Six (6) position modular connectors are now only to be used as plugs (male), not as jack/connectors. Category 3 is accepted as a minimum, however category 5 is recommended. It should be noted that the standard applies to all new construction, additions and remodels, as appropriate.

T586A Connector Pin-Pair Assignments

TIA-570 only addressed generic cabling media for basic residential telecommunications service, e.g., telephone or low speed data and CATV or Satellite TV. TIA-570-A is a much more comprehensive standard that provides expertly conceived models, recommendations and considerations, not only for cabling media types, but demarcation, topology, pathways, separation from sources of EMI, space requirements, distribution devices (DD), auxiliary disconnect outlets (ADO), equipment and patch cords, single or multi-tenant property layouts, link and channel performance criteria and field test requirements, among others. DD’s and ADO’s are more clearly defined as are conduit sizes and cable bundles. Clearly, TIA-570-A is mapping a course for the future of residential telecommunications requirements and has recognized that the need is immediate.

TIA-570-A Grades of Cabling

Service

Grade 1 Cabling
 Requirements

Grade 2 Cabling 
Requirements
Telephone (1) 4-Pair category 3 (1) 4-Pair category 5
Optional (1) 4-Pair category 5 Optional (2) 4-Pair category 5
Television (1) 75-ohm Coax (1) 75-ohm Coax
Optional (2) 75-ohm Coax
Data (1) 4-Pair category 3 (1) 4-Pair category 5
Optional (1) 4-Pair category 5 Optional (2) Optical Fiber
Multimedia Not Accommodated (1) 4-Pair category 5
Optional (2) Optical Fiber

Benefits to Homeowners

Homeowners or tenants are exploring the full spectrum of residential technologies available today and most certainly will continue to do so in the future. Entertainment, security and environmental controls are only a few of the highly desirable attributes being sought by homeowners and tenants. In addition, there are other convenience offerings and features, e.g., energy-efficiency, high performance in-home networking, internal or external digital video/audio systems to name a few. Enhanced capabilities for SOHOs, Internet access or telecommuting are obvious, and are among additional benefits to be enjoyed by residential users, all enabled by a TIA-570-A infrastructure in the home.