Important American standards

The last issue of this column provided and overview on important global standards for IT cabling. This issue focuses on American standards.

Strictly speaking, ANSI/TIA national standards and TIA industry standards apply to the U.S.A. only.

However, many of them are a bit more pragmatic than ISO/IEC and EN standards and so they are used in many projects and countries outside of the U.S. as well.

ANSI (American National Standards Institute) is the national standards body of the United States of America.

TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association) is not a standards body but an ANSI accredited standards developer (ASD).

TIA standards are not national standards but industry standards. Many of them are adopted to the American national standards by ANSI and are then designated ANSI/TIA standards.

TIA cooperates with ISO and IEC and harmonizes many of their standards with ISO and IEC standards. TIA standards and ISO/IEC standards very often differ in details only.

Outside of the U.S.A. TIA are only applicable when agreed by the contracting parties.

IT cabling is standardized by ANSI/TIA-568.

Unlike ISO und EN standards that have the date of publication printed next to the standard’s number, ANSI/TIA and TIA standards have letter instead. The first issue of a standards has no letter, the first revision has an „-A“. „-D“ for example means that it’s the fourth revision of a standard or in other words the fifth issue.

The structure of ANSI/TIA-568 differs from ISO/IEC 11801 and DIN EN 50173.

ANSI/TIA-568.0-E Generic telecommunications cabling for customer premises specifies the general requirements of IT cabling.

ANSI/TIA-568.1-E Commercial building telecommunications infrastructure standard specifies additional general requirements that are important for IT cablind in commercial buildings.

ANSI/TIA-568.2-D Balanced twisted-pair telecommunications cabling and components standard specifies copper networks, copper components and testing of copper links.

ANSI/TIA-568.3-D Optical fiber cabling components specifies copper networks, copper components and testing of fiber optic links.

ANSI/TIA-568.4-D Broadband coaxial cabling and components standard specifies copper networks, copper components and testing of coax links.

ANSI/TIA-568.5 Balanced Single Twisted-pair Telecommunications Cabling and Component Standard specifies single-pair copper networks, the components and the testing of it.

Dediated standards that focus on a special topic are.

ANSI/TIA-569-E Telecommunications pathways and spaces

ANSI/TIA-606-C Administration standard for telecommunications infrastructure

ANSI/TIA-607-D Generic Telecommunications Bonding and Grounding (Earthing) for Customer Premises

ANSI/TIA-862-B Structured Cabling Infrastructure Standard for Intelligent Building Systems

ANSI/TIA-942-A Telecommunications infrastructure standard for data centers

ANSI/TIA-1005-A Telecommunications infrastructure standard for industrial premises

ANSI/TIA-1179-A Healthcare Facility Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard