scope:

SCOPE, PURPOSE, & APPLICATION

Application of electrical protection

The electrical protection, bonding, and grounding measures presented in this standard are intended to assist in protecting persons, equipment, and property from the effects of lightning, commercial ac power system faults, and electromagnetic interference (EMI) on the Network-powered broadband facilities.

Facilities covered

This standard applies to the electrical protection, bonding, and grounding of network-powered broadband facilities at the headend, the outside plant, and at the customer location (including the entrance or interface point). In some cases the headend and the switching center might be collocated. These facilities may consist of paired conductor cable, optical fiber cable, or coaxial cable, either singularly or in any combination. The facilities may be aerial, buried, or underground.

The typical basic system configuration includes a cable supplying power and network-powered broadband signal to a network interface unit (NIU) that converts the network-powered broadband signal to the component signals. Typical cables are coaxial cable with both network-powered broadband signal and power on the center conductor, composite metallic cable with a coaxial member for the network-powered broadband signal and twisted pair(s) for power, and composite optical fiber cable with twisted pair(s) for power. Article 830 of National Electric Code (NEC) covers network-powered broadband communications systems at customer's structures or buildings, extending from the powerpassing tap to the NIU.

Items not covered

Although a variety of existing and proposed network-powered broadband architectures are considered, the merits of the different technologies, and/or architecture types, are not covered.

The following items are also not covered by the standard:

♦ In-Premises wiring and components.

♦ Other customer premises equipment (CPE) from the interface inward.

♦ Specific EMI mitigation designs.

♦ Specifications for primary protectors.

♦ Microwave systems.

♦ Subscriber radio systems.

♦ Communications circuits as covered by National Electric Code (NEC) Article 800. Other ATIS standards such as ATIS-0600313, ATIS-0600316, and ATIS-0600318 cover these communications circuits.

♦ CATV as covered by NEC Article 820.