ANSI/TIA-568-C Purpose and Scope

The ANSI/TIA/EIA-568 standard was developed and has evolved into its current form for several reasons:

• To establish a cabling specification that would support more than a single vendor application
• To provide direction of the design of telecommunications equipment and cabling products that are intended to serve commercial organizations
• To specify a cabling system generic enough to support both voice and data
• To establish technical and performance guidelines and provide guidelines for the planning and installation of structured cabling systems

The standard addresses the following:

• Subsystems of structured cabling
• Minimum requirements for telecommunications cabling
• Installation methods and practices
• Connector and pin assignments
• The life span of a telecommunications cabling system (which should exceed 10 years)
• Media types and performance specifications for horizontal and backbone cabling
• Connecting hardware performance specifications
• Recommended topology and distances
• The definitions of cabling elements (horizontal cable, cross-connects, telecommunication outlets, etc.)

The current configuration of ANSI/TIA-568-C subdivides the standard as follows:

• ANSI/TIA-568-C.0: Generic Telecommunications Cabling for Customer Premises
• ANSI/TIA-568-C.1: Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard
• ANSI/TIA-568-C.2: Balanced Twisted-Pair Telecommunications Cabling and Components Standard
• ANSI/TIA-568-C.3: Optical Fiber Cabling Components Standard

In this chapter, we'll discuss the standard as a whole, without focusing too much on specific sections.

Tip

This chapter provides an overview of the ANSI/TIA-568-C standard and is not meant as a substitute for the official document. Cabling professionals should purchase a full copy; you can do so at the Global Engineering Documents website (www.global.ihs.com).

Warning

Welcome to the Nomenclature Twilight Zone. The ANSI/TIA-568-C standard contains two wiring patterns for use with UTP jacks and plugs. They indicate the order in which the wire conductors should be connected to the pins in modular jacks and plugs and are known as T568A and T568B. Do not confuse these with the documents ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B and the previous version, ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-A. The wiring schemes are both covered in ANSI/TIA/EIA-568.