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Telecom Cabling

Residential cabling

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Telecom Cabling

Approximately 1.6 million new homes are being built in the United States each year, and a surprisingly high percentage, according to TIA research, are having structured cabling systems installed.

The TIA's projections indicate that by 2009, 60 to 80% of new homes in the country will have structured cabling systems installed.

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Telecom Cabling

The growing adoption of broadband Internet access, telecommuting, and the emergence of high speed home automation applications that control voice, audio/video and security, are driving the residential market to demand data rate carrying capabilities of the commercial sector.

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Telecom Cabling

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) notes, “The trends of the past and the predictions for the future indicate that data rates have been doubling every 18 months.” They observe as well that new applications such as streaming media will take advantage of these data rates, affording new capabilities for the residential homeowner.

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Telecom Cabling

Residential cabling is covered by ANSI TIA/EIA 570: residential and light commercial cabling.

Residential cabling is also covered by NEC and IRC (international residential code).

We will first look at the 570 standard as it applies to all new construction.

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Telecom Cabling

The TIA/EIA-570-A Standard includes guidelines for installation of voice, data, video, multimedia, home automation, security alarms, and home automation systems.

Many industry watchers predict that these inside wiring quality standards will be included into local building codes and be subject to the same inspection and approval process as electrical wiring.

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Telecom Cabling

The first thing to remember is that per the FCC all new residential dwellings shall have a minimum of 4 pair Category 3 cabling installed.

This means no more quad cable, the 4 conductor, 22 AWG cable that is so prevalent in existing homes.

What is the color code of quad (POTS) cable?

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Telecom Cabling

Category 3 cable use to support 10 base T Ethernet networks across the country.

10 base T is 10MHz, base band over “T” twisted pair.

CAT 3 is specified to 16MHz, so it is easily capable of providing the basic bandwidth needs of most residential networks.

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Telecom Cabling

The 570 standard calls for two different levels of cabling: Grade 1 and Grade 2.

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Telecom Cabling

Grade 1 is the minimum requirement and recommends one CAT 5e and 1 RG-6 coax at every location. It should be noted that today CAT 6 is the standard.

There shall be one location in every room.

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Telecom Cabling

Grade 2 is customer driven and is a much more expensive install but provides for the optimum solution for the customer who needs a lot of bandwidth or wants to support a home office.

The grade 2 solution is also a future proof solution which we’ve talked about in previous lesson, “always provide some form of future growth”.

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Telecom Cabling

Here we see that the grade 2 solution calls for 2 CAT 5e/6 cables and two RG-6 cables at each location, with fiber as an option.

This grade also calls for a communications outlet for every 12’ of wall space.

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Telecom Cabling

The two CAT 5e drops can support voice and data at every location.

The two RG-6 can support CATV or satellite services at each location.

Having a location on every 12’ of wall space gives the home owner the ability to place furniture anywhere and still have easy access to an outlet.

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Telecom Cabling

The 570 standard also states that cables shall not be daisy chained, all cable installs are to be home runs to a central location, usually the basement.

The cables shall conform to the length restrictions established in TIA/EIA 568.

All outlets shall be RJ-45s.

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Telecom Cabling

The 570 standard does not call for cable certification, however all locations should be wire mapped for correct continuity of pairs.

All cabling should be installed in some type of enclosure referred to as a distribution device (DD), also called a structured media enclosure.

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Telecom Cabling

Many of the high end MDUs (multi family dwellings) already follow this standard and also install micro duct to blow in fiber optic cables in the future.

Micro duct is color code, plastic tubes that provide a cable pathway.

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Telecom Cabling

Another fairly new development for residential cabling is multi media cable.

This is sometimes referred to as hybrid cable and has two CAT 5e/6 and two RG-6 cables in one jacket.

GRADE 1 GRADE 2

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Telecom Cabling

This multi media cable is also available with optical fibers.

This type of cable significantly increases the productivity of cable installs in residential environments.

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Telecom Cabling

All new residential dwellings are now required to have two grounding electrodes (usually two ground rods), one for the power and one for communications.

NEC article 800.100 (D): A bonding jumper not smaller than 6 AWG copper or equivalent shall be connected between the communications grounding electrode and power grounding electrode system at the building or structure served where separate electrodes are used.

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Telecom Cabling

The majority of homes are stick frame construction (wooden 2” X 4”s), which means you will have to drill holes thru wood members.

The NEC book has one article that addresses bored holes in wood members.

The IRC is much more specific and dictates other requirements when drilling holes and establishing cable pathways.

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Telecom Cabling

NEC article 300.4 (A) (1): Bored holes, in both exposed and concealed locations, where a cable or raceway type wiring method is installed through bored holes in joists, rafters, or wood members, holes shall be bored so that the edge of the hole is not less than 11/4” from the nearest edge of the wood member. Where this distance can not be maintained, the cable or race way shall be protected from penetration by screws or nails by a steel plate or bushing, at least 1/16” thick and of appropriate length and width installed to cover the area of the wiring.

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Telecom Cabling

You should keep your holes as far from the edge as possible.

PROTECTIVE STEEL PLATE TO GO ON THE FRONT SIDE OF THE STUD.

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Telecom Cabling

The IRC is a much more specific and dictates how many holes are allowed in any single stud, the maximum size of the hole that is allowed and how far apart the holes should be in any single wood member.

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Telecom Cabling

IRC article R602.6, holes may exceed 60% of the width of the stud provided that studs are doubled.

Notches may not exceed 40% percent of the stud width.

Holes shall not be closer than 2” to the top or bottom of the wood member or to any other hole or any notch.

The edge of the hole shall be no closer than 5/8” from the edge of the wood member.

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Telecom Cabling

As you can see there is a conflict between the NEC and the IRC, the AHJ will probably require a steel plate if the hole is within 1 1/4” of the edge of the wood member.

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Telecom Cabling

To drill holes between studs you may need a right angle drill for those tight spots and an auger bit.

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Telecom Cabling

New residential installs do have to be fire stopped when penetrating from one level to the next level.

The cable types for residential wiring are CM or CMX, for communication circuits and CATV or CATVX for cable TV and satellite.

These types of cables are listed as being resistant to flame spread.