National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN 50346:2002+A2:2009. It supersedes BS EN 50346:2002+A1:2007 which is withdrawn.

The start and finish of text introduced or altered by amendment is indicated in the text by tags. Tags indicating changes to CENELEC text carry the number of the CENELEC amendment. For example, text altered by CENELEC amendment A1 is indicated by .

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted by Technical Committee TCT/7, Telecommunications — Installation requirements, to Subcommittee TCT/7/-/1, Cable installation expert panel.

A list of organizations represented on this subcommittee can be obtained on request to its secretary.

This publication does not purport to include all the necessary provisions of a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 30 January 2003

This European Standard was approved by CENELEC on 2002-11-01. CENELEC members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration.

Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the Central Secretariat or to any CENELEC member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CENELEC member into its own language and notified to the Central Secretariat has the same status as the official versions.

CENELEC members are the national electrotechnical committees of Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom.

Foreword

This European Standard has been prepared by Technical Committee CENELEC TC 215, Electrotechnical aspects of telecommunication equipment.

The text of the draft was submitted to the formal vote and was approved by CENELEC as EN 50346 on 2002-11-01.

The following dates were fixed:

Annexes designated "normative" are part of the body of the standard.

In this standard, Annex A is normative.

This standard covers the testing of installed balanced and optical fibre cabling conforming to either series EN 50173 (generic cabling) or installed cabling conforming to dedicated, application-specific specifications such as series EN 50098. Thus EN 50346 covers a broader scope than EN 61935‑1, which is restricted to the testing of installed balanced cabling according to EN 50173‑1.

Foreword to amendment A1

This amendment to the European Standard EN 50346:2002 was prepared by the Technical Committee CENELEC TC 215, Electrotechnical aspects of telecommunication equipment.

The text of the draft was submitted to the formal vote and was approved by CENELEC as amendment A1 to EN 50346:2002 on 2007-10-01.

The following dates were fixed:

This amendment has been prepared to reflect optical fibre cabling testing as specified in ISO/IEC 14763‑3; furthermore, it introduces an XML schema to ease the exchange and further processing of data captured by field test equipment. As an integral element of this standard, an electronic version of the XML schema is provided in the format of an XSD file.

Foreword to amendment A2

This amendment to the European Standard EN 50346:2002 was prepared by the Technical Committee CENELEC TC 215, Electrotechnical aspects of telecommunication equipment.

The text of the draft was submitted to the Unique Acceptance Procedure and was approved by CENELEC as amendment A2 to EN 50346:2002 on 2009-05-01.

The following dates were fixed:

This amendment has been prepared to align Clause 5 with the latest edition of EN 61935‑1. In addition, requirements for measuring balanced cabling parameters ACR-F, PSANEXT, PSAACR-F and unbalanced parameters (LCL, TCL and ELTCTL) as well as coaxial cabling have been added. For the convenience of the reader, Clause 5 has been reproduced completely in this amendment.

Introduction

Within premises, the importance of the information technology cabling infrastructure is similar to that of other fundamental building utilities such as heating, lighting and mains power supplies. As with other utilities, interruptions to service can have serious impact. Poor quality of service due to lack of planning, use of inappropriate components, incorrect installation, poor administration or inadequate support can threaten an organisation’s effectiveness.

A series of European Standards have been prepared to support the successful installation of information technology cabling. These are

for design - EN 50173 series and relevant application standards (for example, EN 50098‑1 and EN 50098‑2),
for specification, implementation and operation - EN 50174‑1, EN 50174‑2 and EN 50174‑3.

Figure 1 and Table 1 show the schematic and contextual relationships between the standards produced by CLC/TC 215 for information technology cabling.

This European Standard specifies the requirements for the testing of installed balanced copper and optical fibre cabling. Such testing is commonly undertaken at contract interfaces and the requirements of this standard take the form of defined test procedures ensuring that results obtained are relevant, repeatable and credible.

These test procedures may be

referenced within the installation specification,
used during the implementation phase of the installation,
used during the operational phase to diagnose application failures at the cabling level.

This standard does not define which tests should be applied or the quantity or percentage of installed cabling to be tested. The test parameters to be measured and the sampling levels to be applied for a particular installation should be defined in the installation specification and quality plans for that installation prepared in accordance with EN 50174‑1.

1 Scope

This standard specifies procedures for testing the transmission performance of installed information technology cabling in premises. These procedures apply to both balanced copper and optical fibre cabling.

These test procedures may be used for

acceptance testing against agreed cabling performance limits,
verification of specific application support,
the investigation of faults.

These test procedures are not suitable for components or cable assemblies such as patch cords and equipment cords.

For each test procedure this standard specifies

test parameter,
the test method(s),
test system,
test equipment,
cabling interface adaptor,
measurement procedure,
calibration,
interpretation of test results,
documentation.

Limits for the parameters under test are specified in relevant cabling and application standards.

2 Normative references

3 Definitions, abbreviations and symbols

3.1 Definitions

3.2 Abbreviations

3.3 Symbols

4 General requirements

4.1 Location of measurement (test) interfaces

4.2 Safety requirements for test procedures

4.3 Test system

4.4 Normalisation and calibration

4.5 Environmental conditions

4.6 Test results

4.7 Documentation

5 Test parameters for balanced copper cabling

5.1 Wire map

5.2 Length

5.3 Propagation delay

5.4 Delay skew

5.5 Attenuation (insertion loss)

5.6 Attenuation (insertion loss) deviation

5.7 Near end crosstalk loss (NEXT, pair-to-pair and power sum)

5.8 Equal level far end crosstalk loss (ELFEXT, pair-to-pair and power sum)

5.9 Attenuation to crosstalk ratio far end (ACR-F, pair-to-pair and power sum)

5.10 Attenuation to crosstalk ratio near end (ACR-N, pair-to-pair and power sum)

5.11 Return loss

5.12 Unbalance parameters

5.13 Coupling attenuation

5.14 Direct current (d.c.) loop resistance

5.15 Resistance unbalance

5.16 Power sum alien near end crosstalk (PSANEXT)

5.17 Power sum alien far end crosstalk (PSAACR-F)

5.18 Coaxial cabling

6 Test parameters for optical fibre cabling

6.1 General requirements

6.2 Channel and link attenuation

6.3 Inter-component distance

7 Inspection of optical fibre cabling and installed cabling components

Bibliography

BS EN 50346:2002+A2:2009

Information technology. Cabling installation. Testing of installed cabling

Current

Published:

30 Jan 2003