Standards
The FOLS does not develop standards, however many of our members are actively involved in the committees that do. This section was designed to provide up-to-date news and interpretation of the latest standards, as well as insight into the committees now working on new standards.
For an update on recent standards developments, please review the following presentations:
This article, The Evolution of Structured Cabling Standards, provides a helpful overview on the development of standards as well as their current status.
Learn more about the following standards-compliant architectures:
- TIA/EIA-785 Short Wavelength Fast Ethernet: This standard leverages low-cost 850 nm LED technology to enable users to upgrade from 10 Mb/s Ethernet to 100 Mb/s Ethernet.
- Centralized Cabling Architecture (TIA/EIA-568-B.1, building cabling standard). This standard leverages the distance capabilities supported by optical fiber to centralize electronics in a single Telecommunications Room. The benefits of this architecture include: the ability to decrease the size of (or eliminate) TRs on each floor; reducing the cost for electronics; simplifying network maintenance and management; and increased security.
- Fiber-to-the-Telecommunications Enclosure (FTTE): This architecture has many of the advantages of centralized cabling in that it allows electronics to be centralized and uses longer fiber runs up to small Telecommunications Enclosures, located near the user. From these TEs, the final drop can be made using multimode fiber, UTP copper, or wireless. FTTE offers a very cost effective and high performance solution.
Additional Standards Information
The TIA FO-4 Engineering Committee on Fiber Optics is responsible for the development and maintenance of fiber optic component, sub-system, system, and network technology standards.
IHS Global Engineering Documents sells published standards, and you can perform a detailed search or check project statuses on TIA's site.
Cost Model
Hierarchical Star, Centralized Cabling or Fiber-to-the-Telecom Enclosure -- which architecture is best for your installation?
Find out with the FOLS Cost Model.
This interactive cost model is a tool that helps you compare the installed first costs of several standards-compliant architectures using fiber and copper cabling. The Cost Model lets you input your own data to most accurately allow you to compare different media choices.