Introduction

The importance of cabling infrastructure is similar to that of other fundamental utilities such as water and energy supply and interruptions to the services provided over that infrastructure can have a serious impact. A lack of design foresight, the use of inappropriate components, incorrect installation, poor administration or inadequate support can threaten quality of service and have commercial consequences for all types of users.

This standard specifies generic cabling within and between the buildings of office premises, or office spaces within other types of building.

Additionally those premises can include:

— industrial spaces for which generic cabling is specified in EN 50173‑3;
— data centre spaces for which generic cabling is specified in EN 50173‑5.

Generic cabling for distributed building services in office spaces is specified in EN 50173‑6 which addresses all of the above premises and spaces within them.

Figure 1 and Table 1 show the schematic and contextual relationships between the standards produced by TC 215 for information technology cabling, namely:

1) this and other parts of the EN 50173 series;
2) installation (EN 50174 series);
3) bonding (EN 50310).

Figure 1 — Schematic relationship between the EN 50173 series and other relevant standards

Table 1 — Contextual relationship between EN 50173 series and other standards relevant for information technology cabling systems

Building design phase	Generic cabling design phase	Specification phase	Installation phase	Operation phase
	EN 50173‑2	EN 50174‑1
	EN 50173‑3	Planning phase
	EN 50173‑4	Planning phase
	EN 50173‑4
EN 50310	EN 50173‑5 EN 50173‑6 (these ENs reference general	EN 50174‑2 EN 50174‑3 EN 50310	EN 50174‑2 EN 50174‑3 EN 50310	EN 50174‑1
	requirements of
	EN 50173‑1 )

In addition, a number of Technical Reports have been developed to support or extend the application of these standards, including:

— CLC/TR 50173-99-1, Cabling guidelines in support of 10 GBASE-T;
— CLC/TR 50173-99-2, Information technology – Implementation of BCT applications using cabling in accordance with EN 50173‑4;
— CLC/TR 50173-99-3, Information technology – Generic cabling system – Part 99-3: Home cabling infrastructures up to 50 m in length to support simultaneous and non simultaneous provision of applications.

In addition, a number of cabling design standards have been developed using components of EN 50173‑1 (e.g. EN 50098 series and EN 50700).

The generic cabling specified by this standard provides users with:

— an application independent system capable of supporting a wide range of applications including, but not restricted to, those in EN 50173‑1:2018, Annex F in a range of installation and operating environments;
— a flexible scheme such that modifications are both easy and economical;
— a multi-vendor supply chain within an open market for cabling components.

In addition this standard provides:

a) relevant industry professionals with guidance allowing the accommodation of cabling before specific requirements are known; i.e. in the initial planning either for construction or refurbishment and for further deployment as the requirements of areas are defined;
b) industry and standardization bodies with a cabling system which supports current products and provides a basis for future product development and applications standardization.

Applications addressed in this standard include those developed by the Technical Committees of IEC (including the subcommittees of ISO/IEC JTC 1) and study groups of ITU-T.

Physical layer requirements for the applications listed in EN 50173‑1:2018, Annex F, have been analysed to determine their compatibility with the cabling performance specified in this standard and, together with statistics concerning premises geography from different countries and the models described in Clause 4, have been used to develop the requirements for cabling components and to stipulate their arrangement into cabling systems.

As a result, this standard:

a) specifies a structure for generic cabling supporting a wide variety of applications including, but not restricted to, those in EN 50173‑1:2018, Annex F;
b) adopts balanced cabling channel and link Classes E, EA, F and FA, specified in EN 50173‑1;
c) adopts optical fibre cabling channel and link requirements specified in EN 50173‑1;
d) adopts component requirements, specified in EN 50173‑1, and specifies cabling implementations that ensures performance of links and of channels meeting the requirements of a specified group (e.g. Class) of applications.

Life expectancy of generic cabling systems can vary depending on environmental conditions, supported applications, aging of materials used in cables, and other factors such as access to pathways (campus pathways are more difficult to access than building pathways).

With appropriate choice of components, generic cabling systems meeting the requirements of this standard are expected to have a life expectancy of at least ten years.

BS EN 50173-2:2018

Information technology. Generic cabling systems - Office spaces

Current

Published:

30 Jun 2018