Decoding

Standards
NCS Newsletter • August 2014
Connect to tomorrow
Welcome to Nexans’ overview of the latest developments on international standardisation
within the structured cabling industry, and insights from its experts on the most hotly debated
standards of the moment.

Very high throughput Wi-Fi and the Internet of Things

the impact on cabling system design

Introduction

The last few years have seen a repeat of the
convergence which occurred in the late 1980s when
telephony and data, previously on discrete cabling
systems, were brought together over structured cabling.
This time the convergence is affecting previously
separate (and Facilities owned) security devices such
as door lock controllers and IP cameras, Building
Management System components and “Intelligent”
Building components.
Sprinkle emerging “very high throughput” wireless and
the Internet of Things (IoT) into the mix and there are
suddenly some additional requirements and design
challenges facing cabling designers and specifiers to
ensure that cabling for these purposes is going to last
more than a couple of years.
Standards groups at European and International level
have termed this sort of cabling as being for “Distributed
Building Services”.
The purpose of this article is to explain what this
means, why it’s different from “ordinary” cabling and
what thought processes need to be applied to ensure
longevity of the installed system.

People focus

Rob Cardigan
Many of Nexans’ experts are involved in standardisation committee work. Each issue of
Decoding Standards will take a look at a different expert.

Rob Cardigan has been Senior Product Manager at Nexans Cabling Solutions since
2007. Rob has more than 20 years experience in connector and cabling design, having
worked in R&D and Product Management roles with Amphenol, MOD-TAP and Molex,
prior to joining Nexans. He is Chairman of TCT/7 - UK National Committee mirroring
work in ISO JTC1/SC25 and CENELEC TC215 and is also Chairman of TCT/7/-/3
the UK mirror committee for Data Centre standards in CLC TC215 WG3. Here, he is
actively working on EN 50600 series of standards
 Why it’s different .... Internet of Things

Importantly, cabling for these distributed services is
fundamentally no different at a component (cable,
connectors and cords) level – it can be constructed
from the same components as traditional office
cabling. The differences are related to the locations in
which this cabling resides (and that does have some
product implications), the devices it interconnects and
probably most crucially WHEN it gets installed into
Connect to tomorrow
the building.
Where and what? Well this type of cabling is mostly
installed in ceiling voids and building core areas or, if
you prefer, in the places where people aren’t usually
accommodated and connects “non-user” devices
of the sort explained above. Because of this the
designer/specifier should be aware that there may be
issues of physical robustness of product closures and
flammability rating to be considered.
When? This type of cabling is often part of “shell and
core” not”fit-out” so one of the challenges is that it can
be installed quite some time before “traditional” cabling
and may not terminate in the same floor distributors.
EN and ISO standards
Both CENELEC and ISO have seen the importance
of this type of cabling and CENELEC have already
published EN 50173-6 to specify requirements for
distributed building services. ISO are in the process
of splitting ISO/IEC 11801 into sub documents as
CENELEC have done with the EN 50173 series.
ISO/IEC 11801-6 will address the same subject
matter and may well get a title which more accurately
reflects the cabling it will define. The content of both
the published EN and the draft ISO/IEC version is
very similar – with the ISO/IEC document having the
advantage of following the EN and therefore having
improvements made. Both documents promote a
grid design (more on that below) and have the same
performance recommendations.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is used to describe a new
generation of networked (or networkable) devices.
The convergence discussed in the introduction is really
beginning to take off. The building of the (near) future
will be full of devices that can communicate with each
other and supervisor programmes to share and work
with data.
This communication may be via the Internet but in
many buildings will be restricted to LAN connectivity
partly because of a shortage of unique IP addresses
in the IPv4 scheme but mainly because of concerns
over security. IoT devices may be mobile in which
case wireless connectivity makes sense or static and
therefore hard-wired to a socket. In both cases it is
the cabling for “Distributed Building Services” that will
ultimately provide the connection.
803.11ac
There are very few truly wireless networks and often
the best wireless infrastructure has a really good wired
backbone. Traditionally this wired backbone has been
scaled to suit the wireless connection speeds to the
devices and with 802.11n networks the ~576Mb/s
data rate down to connected devices has driven a
1Gb Ethernet backbone easily encompassed by a
Category 5e/Class D cabling overlay.
This has also fitted nicely with the view that the
connected “non-user” devices transfer relatively low
quantities of data and therefore a 10/100 Mb
Ethernet service is more than adequate and lead to
50173-6 cabling being specified as Category 5e.
Unfortunately this now appears to be inadequate ....
the first wave of IEEE 803.11ac WAPs are available
and offer up to 1.3 Gb/s wireless connectivity which
potentially means that the 1Gb Ethernet backbone is
already a bottle neck. Consequently both the EN and
ISO/IEC standards are recommending a minimum of
Category 6A cabling for WAP backbones allowing
each node to be provided with a 10GbE backbone
connection.

802.11n 802.11ac

Transmission Frequency 2.4/5GHz 5GHz

Channel Bandwidth 20/40MHz 80/160MHz

Modulation 64 QAM 256 QAM

Maximum Number of “Streams” 4 8

Theoretical Maximum Data Rate per “Stream” 144 Mb/s 866 Mb/s

Theoretical Maximum Data Rate per WAP 576 Mb/s 6.93 Mb/s
 Grid design

Both EN 50173-6 and the emerging ISO/

IEC cabling standards describe the concept of The predefined locations of SO (s) may be used to
Service Area (s), which are based on Service connect WLAN Access Points, IP Cameras or building
Outlets (SO) proposed as a honeycomb structure. management equipment (sensors, etc.)
Connect to tomorrow

Summary The requirement for high speed wireless backbones will

The Internet of Things will drive an increase in the
amount of Distributed Building Services cabling
required in an installation.
drive the adoption of Category 6A in ceiling voids
(in particular).
EN and ISO/IEC standards provide guidance on the
design of cabling infrastructure and the selection of
materials.

Click here
Cat6A solutions from Nexans

Standards Round-up Editors have been appointed for each part and the
complete document has been circulated for comment
August 2014 PRIOR to the split so that comments affecting multiple
parts may be captured.
ISO/IEC Cabling Standards
During the split there are a number of changes which
The most significant news from the ISO/IEC meeting will be made; principally that the OF Classes will be
in Kyoto (Feb/Mar 2014) was the confirmation that prepared for removal and CCCB will also potentially
ISO/IEC 11801 would be split into parts in a similar be removed. Proposals have also been made to
way to EN 50173. The 3rd Edition will therefore be redefine the “sub-components” of a channel to more
sub-divided as follows: accurately reflect the construction of 2 and 3 connector
• Part 1 – General permanent links.
• Part 2 – Offices
• Part 3 – Industrial The 3rd Edition will contain the emerging “Cat 8”
• Part 4 – Homes specifications with an upper frequency of 1600
• Part 5 – Data Centres - 2GHz and will specify Channel I and Channel II
• Part 6 – Distributed Building Services requirements along with their components.
 ISO/IEC Automated Infrastructure
Management
The ISO/IEC AIM document has reached a level of
maturity that will allow it to go forward for National
Body comment following the Beijing meeting in
September 2014.
CENELEC Cabling Standards
Connect to tomorrow
Current work within CENELEC cabling standards
focuses on the following:
• EN 50173 series: Information technology:
Generic cabling
• EN 50346: Information technology: Cabling
Installation: Testing of installed cabling (Ed.1, A1
and A2 published, no work underway)
• EN 50700: Information technology - Premises
distribution access network (PDAN) cabling
to support deployment of optical broadband
networks
• - CLC TR 50173-99 series:
- CLC TR 50173-99-1: Cabling in support of
10GBASE-T
- CLC TR 50173-99-2: Implementation of BCT
applications using cabling from EN 50173-4
- CLC TR 50173-99-3: Information technology -
Home cabling infrastructures up to 50m
CENELEC Data Centre Standards
Progress on the EN 50600 Series of standards
continues at an impressive pace. In addition to the
publication of the General part EN50600-1, Part 2-1
(Buildings) and 2-2 (Power Distribution) have now also
been published.
EN 50600-2-3 (Environmental Control) is circulated
for Final Vote and should be published before the end
of 2014.
Part 2-4 (Data Centre Cabling) is reaching a state of
maturity and will be prepared for Final Draft status
following the November meeting which indicates
publication in Early 2015. Similar timescales are
predicted for Part 2-5 (Security). The group will
now concentrate on the development of Part 2-6
(Management).
IEEE
The following covers activity in the May and July
meetings of IEEE 802.3
Fibre Protocols
802.3bm
100Gb/s Next Generation Optical PHYs
This proposal is for interconnection via 4 lanes of
25Gb/s rather than 10 lanes of 10Gb/s and will
include:
• 40G PHY for ≥40km of SM fibre
• 100G PHY for ≥100m of MM fibre
802.3bs
Next Generation Ethernet
This proposal is for the definition of 400GB/s Ethernet
over Duplex SM and Parallel MM fibre and includes
PHYs for:
• ≥100m of MM fibre
• ≥500m of Duplex SM fibre
• ≥2km of Duplex SM fibre
• ≥10km of Duplex SM fibre
Copper Protocols
802.3bj
100Gb/s Copper
This proposal is for high speed backplane and twin-
ax protocols for switch interconnection via 4 lanes of
25Gb/s rather than 10 lanes of 10Gb/s and will
include:
• 100GBASE-KR4 for new blade backplanes
• 100GBASE-PR4 for legacy blade backplanes
• 100GBASE-CR4 for TOR switching
802.3bq
40GBASE-T
Decisions reached at the recent meetings include:
• 30m length
• Signalling rate of 3,200 Mbaud (4x10GBASE-T)
adopted
• ISO/IEC Channel I Insertion Loss and Return Loss
specified with 2GHz upper frequency
• ISO/IEC Channel I PSANEXT specified with
2GHz upper frequency
• ISO/IEC Channel I PSAACRF specified with
2GHz upper frequency
Draft 0.9 in preparation ready for the September
meeting.
802.3bt
4 Pair Power over Ethernet
The purpose of this is to define a 4 Pair PoE protocol to
deliver ≥49W to a Powered Device (PD)
• Comply with SELV of ISO/IEC 60950 (IT safety)
• Operation @ up to 100m over Class D
(or better):2002, Class D: 1995
• Include 10GBASE-T option
 Standards Calendar

Standard committee Covering Date of meeting

Recent meetings
Connect to tomorrow
IEEE 802.3 802.3 Ethernet Working Group 12 – 16 May 2014
802.3bm Next Generation 40Gb/s and Norfolk, USA
100 Gb/s Optical Ethernet Task force updated: 16 June

Next generation Base-T task force (and other topics)

ISO/IEC SC25 WG3 Microprocessor systems; and O/F interfaces, 30 Sept - 4 Oct 2013
protocols and associated interconnecting Kista, Sweden

media for information technology equipment 25 Feb – 1 Mar,

Kyoto, Japan

TIA TR 42 Copper cabling Systems (42.7) Mar 2014

Sustainable information technologies (42.10) Beijing, China

CENELEC TC 215 WG3 Data Centre Cabling, EN 50600 10 -12 Sep 2013
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands

Jan 2014
London, UK

June 2014
Berlin, Germany

Upcoming meetings

ISO/IEC SC25 WG3 Microprocessor systems; and O/F interfaces, 14 -17 Sep 2014
protocols and associated interconnecting Beijing, China
media for information technology equipment

TIA TR 42 Copper cabling Systems (42.7) 06 Oct 2014
Sustainable information technologies (42.10) Austin, Texas USA

IEEE 802.3 40GBase-T task force 8 Sept 2014
IEEE P802.3bp task force Kanata, Ottawa
Canada

3 – 6 Nov 2014
San Antonio,
Texas USA

CENELEC TC 215 WG3 Data Centre Cabling, EN 50600 12 -14 Nov
Athens, Greece

Disclaimer
This document is for guidance only and Nexans cannot be held liable for any implementation of a system which fails to deliver
expected results, whether implied or implicit from the interpretation of this document.