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Information technology - Generic cabling systems

Within customer premises, the importance of the cabling infrastructure is similar to that of other fundamental building utilities such as heating, lighting and mains power. As with other utilities, interruptions to service can have serious impact. Poor quality of service due to lack of design foresight, use of inappropriate components, incorrect installation, poor administration or inadequate support can threaten an organisation's effectiveness. Historically, the cabling within a premises comprised both application-specific and multipurpose networks. Appropriate use of this European Standard will enable a controlled migration to generic cabling. Certain circumstances may warrant the introduction of application-specific cabling; these instances should be minimised.

This European Standard provides:

a) users with an application independent generic cabling system and an open market for cabling components;
b) users with a flexible cabling scheme such that modifications are both easy and economical;
c) building professionals (for example, architects) with guidance allowing the accommodation of cabling before specific requirements are known; i.e., in the initial planning either for construction or refurnish-ment;
d) industry and standardisation bodies for applications with a cabling system which supports current pro-ducts and provides a basis for future product development.

This European Standard specifies a multi-vendor cabling, and is related to:

a) standards for cabling components developed by Technical Committees of CENELEC and/or IEC;
b) applications developed by the subcommittees of ISO/IEC JTC 1 and study groups of ITU-T 1); for ex-ample, Local Area Networks (LANs): ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6 and SC 25/WG 4; Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN): ITU-T SG 13;
c) planning and installation guides for the implementation and use of generic cabling systems.

The applications listed in annex F have been analysed to determine the requirements for a generic cabling system. These requirements, together with statistics concerning premises geography from different countries and the model described in 5.2.1, have been used to develop the requirements for cabling components and to stipulate their arrangement into cabling systems. As a result, generic cabling defined within this European Standard is targeted at, but not limited to, the general office environment.

It is anticipated that the generic cabling system defined by this European Standard will have a life expectancy in excess of ten years.