Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) | Standards and Specification Organizations

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is a trade organization that consists of a membership of over 1,100 telecommunications and electronics companies that provide services, materials, and products throughout the world. The TIA membership manufactures and distributes virtually all the telecommunication products used in the world today. TIA's mission is to represent its membership on issues relating to standards, public policy, and market development. The 1988 merger of the United States Telecommunications Suppliers Association (USTSA) and the EIA's Information and Telecommunications Technologies Group formed the TIA.

The TIA (along with the EIA) was instrumental in the development of the ANSI/TIA/EIA-568 Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard. TIA can be found on the Web at www.tiaonline.org.

TIA Committees

In the United States (and much of the world), the TIA is ultimately responsible for the standards related to structured cabling as well as many other technological devices used every day. If you visit the TIA website (www.tiaonline.org), you will find that committees develop the specifications. Often, a number of committees will contribute to a single specification. You may find a number of abbreviations that you are not familiar with. These include the following:

SFG Standards Formulation Group is a committee responsible for developing specifications.

FO Fiber Optics was a committee dedicated to fiber-optic technology. This has now been merged into the TR-42 engineering committee

TR Technical Review is an engineering committee.

WG Working Group is a general title for a subcommittee.

UPED The User Premises Equipment Division centers its activities on FCC (Federal Communications Commission) regulatory changes.

Some of the TIA committees and their responsibilities are as follows:

TR-30 Develops standards related to the functional, electrical, and mechanical characteristics of interfaces between data circuit terminating equipment (DCE), data terminal equipment (DTE) and multimedia gateways, the telephone and voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) networks, and other DCE and facsimile systems.

TR-41 User Premises Telecommunications Requirements is responsible for the specifications relating to technologies such as IP (Internet Protocol), telephony (VoIP), wireless telephones, caller ID, multimedia building distribution, and wireless user premises equipment.

TR-42 User Premises Telecommunications Infrastructure is responsible for specifications such as the Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling (ANSI/TIA-568-C.1 or subcommittee TR-42.1), Residential Telecommunications Infrastructure (ANSI/TIA-570-B or subcommittee TR-42.2), Commercial Building Telecommunications Pathways and Spaces (TIA-569-B or subcommittee TR-42.3), Telecommunications Copper Cabling Systems (ANSI/TIA-568-C.2 or subcommittee TR-42.7), Telecommunications Optical Fiber Cabling Systems (ANSI/TIA-568-C.3 or subcommittee TR-42.8). The subcommittees of TR-42 formed the TIA/EIA-568-B specification ratified in 2001 and are presently updating this into the ANSI/TIA-568-C specification version. FO-4 was merged into TR-42 in 2008:

• Optical Systems (subcommittee TR-42.11)
• Optical Fibers and Cables (subcommittee TR-42.12)
• Passive Optical Devices and Components (subcommittee TR-42.13)
• Fiber Optic Metrology (subcommittee TR-42.15)
• Premises Telecommunications Bonding & Grounding (subcommittee TR-42.16).