The TCF Premises Wiring Working Party was established in March 2009 to prepare a self-regulated Code of Practice for Residential and Small Office Premises Wiring, to be adopted by TCF members and other interested parties.
The scope of this project was to develop a Code of Practice that will be used by professional installers involved in providing generic or “structured” cabling for telecommunications and other services in both residential and small office premises.
The aim of Code is to set out minimum requirements while laying the framework for more sophisticated installations, provide guidelines for installers on acceptable practices, verification and qualification testing and certification of compliance; and promote end user confidence in the fact that their home/small office will be able to support a range of different service offerings.
The working party completed the draft TCF Premises Wiring Code of Practice, and issued the document for consultation, submissions on the Code closed on 5pm on 18th November 2009. The Working Party reviewed the submissions and completed the final version for the TCF Board to approve.
At the TCF Board meeting held 5 February 2010 the TCF Board approved the TCF Premises Wiring Code of Practice.
A two page information handout on minimum cable installation is also available for installers and homeowners -
TCF Minimum Communication Cable Installation Requirements.
Background
The vast majority of homes and small businesses are wired in accordance with PTC 103 (Code of Practice for Residential type and Small Office Customer Premises Wiring) for PSTN voice and low speed data services.
The development of a Code is considered essential as the technical and functional demands of next generation broadband services are likely to exceed the capabilities of PTC 103 compliant wiring systems. This is due to a number of factors including:
- demand for integrated services in the home;
- Ethernet LANs;
- increasing broadband line rates; and,
- service providers wishing to deploy multiple services over a single telecommunications infrastructure.
Various standards exist for generic cabling for homes including the Telecom published Code of Practice (PTC 106) which is currently promoted for use in fibre sub-divisions. However this standard is not currently utilised in a consistent, co-ordinated manner by those responsible for telecommunications wiring and/or those building or renovating homes.
There are various technological and economic drivers for agreeing standards for premise wiring including:
Technological drivers:
- International & National Standards – recommendation is 1000BaseT (vs. PSTN).
- The universal RJ45 jack (vs. BT Jack).
- Advance of ADSL2+ and VDSL technologies (vs. PSTN and ADSL).
- The continuing development of Cat 6 and Cat 6a UTP and fibre cabling standards.
Economic drivers:
- Protection of home owners’ investment.
- Minimising the direct cost of poorly performing home networks.
- Encouraging the uptake and use of Next Generation (multi-play) services.
Membership of Premises Wiring Working Party
- Chorus
- Orcon
- Telecom Retail
- Telecom Wholesale
- TelstraClear
- Vector Communications
- Vodafone
- WorldxChange
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