ISO 11801:2002 - Information technology – Generic cabling for customer premises

Within customer premises, the importance of the cabling infrastructure is similar to that of other fundamental building utilities such as heating, lighting and mains power. As with other utilities, interruptions to service can have a serious impact. Poor quality of service due to lack of design foresight, use of inappropriate components, incorrect installation, poor administration or inadequate support can threaten an organization's effectiveness. Historically, the cabling within premises comprised both application specific and multipurpose networks. The original edition of this standard enabled a controlled migration to generic cabling and the reduction in the use of application-specific cabling.

The subsequent growth of generic cabling designed in accordance with ISO/IEC 11801 has:

a) contributed to the economy and growth of Information and Communications Technology (ICT),
b) supported the development of high data rate applications based upon a defined cabling model, and
c) initiated development of cabling with a performance surpassing the performance classes specified in ISO/IEC 11801:1995 and ISO/IEC 11801 Ed1.2:2000. NOTE ISO/IEC 11801, edition 1.2 consists of edition 1.0 (1995) and its amendments 1 (1999) and 2 (1999).

This second edition of ISO/IEC 11801 has been developed to reflect these increased demands and opportunities.

This International Standard provides:

a) users with an application independent generic cabling system capable of supporting a wide range of applications;
b) users with a flexible cabling scheme such that modifications are both easy and economical;
c) building professionals (for example, architects) with guidance allowing the accommodation of cabling before specific requirements are known; that is, in the initial planning either for construction or refurbishment;
d) industry and applications standardization bodies with a cabling system which supports current products and provides a basis for future product development.

This International Standard specifies a multi-vendor cabling system which may be implemented with material from single and multiple sources, and is related to:

a) international standards for cabling components developed by committees of the IEC, for example copper cables and connectors as well as optical fiber cables and connectors (see Clause 2 and bibliography);
b) standards for the installation and operation of information technology cabling as well as for the testing of installed cabling (see Clause 2 and bibliography);
c) applications developed by technical committees of the IEC, by subcommittees of ISO/IEC JTC 1 and by study groups of ITU-T, for example for LANs and ISDN; d) planning and installation guides which take into account the needs of specific applications for the configuration and the use of cabling systems on customer premises (ISO/IEC 14709 series).

Physical layer requirements for the applications listed in Annex F have been analyzed to determine their compatibility with cabling classes specified in this standard. These application requirements, together with statistics concerning the topology of premises and the model described in 7.2, have been used to develop the requirements for Classes A to D and the optical class cabling systems. New Classes E and F have been developed in anticipation of future network technologies.

Retrieved 03/12/14 from IEC Webstore