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21ST CENTURY NETWORK STANDARD
TELECOMMUNICATION ROOM DESIGN STANDARDS

I. Purposes:

  1. For new UW-Madison buildings and for buildings with major remodeling and renovation projects, standardize the telecommunications room specifications.
  2. For existing buildings, to upgrade existing telecommunications rooms to conform as closely as possible to the standards established for new buildings.

II. Background:
At UW-Madison, buildings are designed using the structured wiring method. Telecommunication rooms are used as cross-connect facilities to:

  1. Crossconnect outside plant cable pairs/strands to building riser pairs/strands
  2. Cross-connect inside plant riser cable pairs to horizontal cable pairs.
  3. To house active electronic equipment such as campus network and local area network (LAN) hubs/servers/routers, voice mail servers, alarms and security equipment, environmental sensor controls, audio system controls and campus clock synchronization electronics.
  4. To terminate telecommunications cables (fiber, copper, coaxial and special purpose).

III. Reference:
BICSI Telecommunications Distribution Methods Manual (2000):

  • Chapter 7 – Telecommunication Rooms
  • Chapter 8 – Equipments Rooms
  • Chapter 9 – Telecommunications Entrance Facilities and Termination
  • Chapter 15 – Firestopping
  • Chapter 16 – Power Distribution
  • Chapter 17 – Grounding, Bonding and Electrical Protection

IV. Telecommunications Room Standards

A. Size:
A formula that is used to compute telecommunication room size is:
Nationally, a standard work area is defined as 10m2. The formula to calculate the telecommunications room size is: .07m2 x the number of 10m2 work areas. For a floor with 200 work areas the room size would be 14m2 (150ft2). On campus we specify room sizes of 180ft2 for new or renovated buildings. For the main telecommunication room, the minimum size would be 180 ft2, but the size may be larger depending on the size of the building and the role the building assumes in the campus network topology. For instance, if a main telecommunication room serves as a supernode or node, more space will be required for additional network equipment racks.

B. Geographic Telecommunication Room (TR) Locations within a Building:
Rooms should:

  1. Be vertically stacked
  2. For each floor, have sufficient TRs to meet the horizontal distance limitations.
  3. Easily accessible to cable pathways (internal and external)
  4. Conveniently located for the delivery and/or removal of equipment
  5. Avoid areas of electromagnetic interference
  6. Not be located near areas subject to water or steam infiltration
  7. Not be located in a corrosive atmosphere

C. Co-Sharing/Storage in Telecommunication Rooms:

  1. For new buildings and buildings being renovated the telecommunication rooms should be designed so that there is no co-sharing with other facilities such as building maintenance/custodial facilities and electrical rooms.
  2. For existing telecommunications rooms that are to be upgraded to this standard, every effort will be made to eliminate co-sharing. If this is not physically possible, the telecommunications portion of the room should be segregated from the co-sharing occupant by means of a physical barrier such as a wire cage or partition.
  3. The following items that should never be stored in telecommunications rooms:
    1. Cleaning chemicals and cleaning equipment
    2. Office and computer supplies especially toner and printer paper
    3. Grounds keeping chemicals
    4. Petroleum or other fuels
    5. Hazardous material such as asbestos

D. Telecommunication Room Arrangements:
A telecommunication room must include sufficient space for wall mounted blocks, racks (with a minimum of 32” clearance front and back), pathways, 30” minimum clearance in front of electrical panels, space for back up power equipment (e.g. Uninterruptible Power Supply) and room for growth (at least 20%).

E. Electric Power:

  1. The room will be fed with dedicated power. The equipment will be on a feeder separate from the feeder for the room’s lights, HVAC and other utilities.
  2. Individual branch circuits to large telecommunications electronic equipment will be provided.
  3. Power conditioning and backup power will be provided. In addition to the backup power provided by the rack mounted or roll-around uninterruptible power supplies, the rooms will have sufficient electrical outlets connected to the building’s emergency generator (if such a generator exists).
  4. A building grounding and bonding system tying together all of the telecommunication rooms to the building ground will be installed.

F. HVAC:

  1. The room temperature should be in the range 18ºC to 24ºC (64ºF - 75ºF). If this range can be maintained by the incorporation of adequate ventilation means, then mechanical cooling is not required. If this temperature range cannot be maintained by ventilation alone, then mechanical cooling will be required. A 20% growth factor for cooling/ventilation is to be included in the design.
  2. City water will be provided as backup for the mechanical cooling in cases where the campus chilled water supply is interrupted. Automatic switchover is preferred.
  3. The relative humidity should range from 15% to 55% adjusted to the outside temperature
  4. The heat dissipation per cabinet will range from 750 to 5000 BTU. The heat dissipation of the uninterruptible power supply (s) will also be calculated.
  5. If mechanical cooling equipment is installed, drip pans will be installed to shunt any condensation away from the installed telecommunications equipment.

G. Room Infrastructure Characteristics:

  1. Walls:
    1. Painted with two coats of fire retardant light colored paint.
    2. Include ¾” fire retardant plywood installed to mount hardware. The plywood can either be fire retardant or painted with two coats of fire retardant paint.
  2. Floor:
    1. Has a smooth surface that doesn’t raise dust or produce static electricity. VTC is the preferred choice.
    2. Generally no floor drain will be required. If the TR is below grade then a specific assessment of the need will be done to determine if a floor drain is be required.
    3. Has distributed floor load rating of 4.8 kPa (100lbf/ft2)
    4. Has a concentrated load rating up to 12.0 kPa (250lbf/ft2)
  3. Ceiling:
    1. Height – at least 2.6 m (8’ 6”)
    2. No protrusions that will preclude a minimum clear height of 2.44 m (8’)
    3. Painted in a light color with non-dust producing paint
    4. No false ceilings will be installed
  4. Doors/Security:
    1. At least 1 meter wide by 2 meters tall (3’ x 6’8”)
    2. A double door is recommended for large equipment rooms (1.8 meters wide by 2.3 meters tall (6’ x 7’6”)
    3. A centrally controlled card door security access system with the following characteristics:
      1. Access is limited to DoIT certified authorized agents and a restricted set of Physical Plant personnel (e.g. electricians).
      2. If the room were co-shared, the access list would be expanded to include custodial personnel and designated building staff.
      3. The access system to be installed will conform to UW-Madison standards as established by Police & Security, in coordination with other key campus organizations.
      4. Video surveillance cameras may also be installed to cover key telecommunication rooms.
  5. Fire Protection:
    1. Have a portable fire extinguisher with current certification
    2. If dry sprinklers are required by code, protect the sprinkler head to reduce the possibility that the head could accidentally discharge
  6. Lighting:
    1. Adequate and uniform lighting measuring 540 lux (50 foot candles) at 1 meter above finished floor (AFF)
    2. Have an emergency light integrated with the building emergency backup power system.

7. Firestopping – fire stop all room penetrations (e.g. cables, pathways, trays, conduits, slots)

H. Equipment Racks:

  1. For the main telecommunication room, at least three 7’ nineteen inch racks will be installed. More may be required if the room is also a supernode or node.
  2. For floor telecommunication rooms, at least one 7’ nineteen inch rack will be installed.
  3. All racks will include wire managers.
  4. Where possible, electrical outlets will be installed on the racks.
  5. Unless a raised flooring is installed, all jumpers and cabling will be fed to the racks from overhead installed cable trays/pathways.
  6. Telecommunication Blocks - Telecommunications blocks compatible with the type of telecommunications cable to be installed will be securely mounted on the fire retardant plywood backboard.

I. Lighting:

  1. Adequate and uniform lighting measuring 540 lux (50 foot candles) at 1 meter above finished floor (AFF)
  2. Have an emergency light integrated with the building emergency backup power system.

J. Fire Protection:

  1. Have a portable fire extinguisher with current certification
  2. If dry sprinklers are required by code, protect the sprinkler head to reduce the possibility that the head could accidentally discharge
  3. Firestopping – fire stop all room penetrations (e.g. cables, pathways, trays, conduits, slots)

K. Equipment Racks:

  1. For the main telecommunication room, at least three 7’ nineteen inch racks will be installed. More may be required if the room is also a supernode or node.
  2. For floor telecommunication rooms, at least one 7’ nineteen inch rack will be installed.
  3. All racks will include wire managers.
  4. Where possible, electrical outlets will be installed on the racks.
  5. Unless a raised flooring is installed, all jumpers and cabling will be fed to the racks from overhead installed cable trays/pathways.

L. Telecommunication Blocks - Telecommunications blocks compatible with the type of telecommunications cable to be installed will be securely mounted on the fire retardant