Electical Contractor

In the March 2002 issue, I reported on the activity within the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) to develop a cabling system in support of building-automation systems (BAS). At the time of writing that article, the document was out for industry ballot.

TIA Subcommittee TR-42.3, responsible for developing recommendations for pathways and spaces, recently approved Addendum 6 to TIA/EIA-569-A, officially called ANSI/TIA/EIA-569-A-6 Multi-tenant Pathways and Spaces Addendum.

The arena of voice/data/video installations for electrical contractors can be both challenging and rewarding. The market is flowing into combining the traditional with the new in what is now being called integrated building systems (IBS) installations.

Multimedia applications have just taken over networks. Long gone are the days when the most taxing task for any network was moving data files through itself.

Well, we’ve heard it all before—fiber to the desktop (FTTD) is on its way to becoming the power source of choice. While unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cabling has been dominant, there is reason to think fiber will be a true competitor soon.

CODE CITATIONS Article 110 Requirements for Electrical Installations Article 210 Branch Circuits Article 250 Grounding Article 310 Conductors for General Wiring Article 404 Switches Article 408 Switchboards and Panelboards Article 670 Industrial Machinery Branch circuit for refrigerator in dwelling

IEEE 802.11 provides platform for new applications When the concept of the wireless local area network (LAN) was introduced more than 20 years ago, numerous companies tried to implement its applications through the use of spread spectrum, infrared and narrowband microwave technologies based on twist

Just last month I informed you of the Telecommunications Industry Association’s (TIA’s) efforts to develop a specification for Building Automation Systems (BAS) for commercial buildings.

It seems as if many people talk about the future a lot. The problem with such discussions is that if predicting the future were easy, many of us would not be working today because we would have made a fortune in the stock market by now.