There must be at least one telecommunications equipment room (T-E-R) in a single-story building. For multi-story buildings, one T-E-R on the first floor (or basement) is required and at least one smaller telecommunications room (TR) is required on each floor above. T-E-Rs and TRs must be designed so that they are within 295 "cable feet" (90 meters) of every telecommunications outlet (TO) on that floor. If this is not possible then more than one TR per floor is required. (295 cable feet includes cable lengths through vertical walls, conduits, cable trays and other pathways between the patch panels in the TR and the TO.)

The best location for T-E-Rs or TRs is the building core. The rooms should be vertically aligned or stacked. They must be accessible either from the building exterior, public hallway or other common areas. They must not be located inside office spaces, class rooms or auditoria.

T-E-Rs and TRs must be dedicated to telecommunications. They may not contain electrical and mechanical equipment; fire alarm panels, slop sinks for janitors, etc. Equipment not related to the T-E-R and TR such as piping, duct work, building column and distribution of building power must not be located in or pass through the T-E-R or TRs.

B. Size

The size of the telecommunications spaces depends on the function and total area served. (Please refer to the sizing method for each specific type of telecommunications space in items K and L.)

C. Doors

The doors to the telecommunications rooms must open 180 degrees outward unless restricted by building code. They must be a minimum of 36" wide and 80" high with no door sills. For security reasons, doors must be equipped with locks. Locks must be keyed to UCSD standard utility room key (10544 or DB32 if the room is a telecommunications node room). This key assignment must be included in the keying schedule. Telecommunications rooms must not have windows.

D. Floors

Carpet is not permitted in any telecommunications spaces. Floors-- also walls and ceilings-- should be treated and sealed to eliminate dust. Static-controlled vinyl tiles are the preferred floor cover.

The rating for distributed floor loading for telecommunications room must be greater than 100 lbs/sq. ft. Concentrated loading must be greater than 2000 lbs in areas that will support telecommunications equipment.

E. Walls

All walls must be lined with ¾" void free A-C grade (or better) plywood. The plywood must be fire retardant or treated with at least two coats of fire retardant paint on all sides. Use light colored paint to aid with lighting in the rooms. The bottom of the plywood should be mounted 6" above finished floor (AFF). No electrical conduits, junction boxes or any other equipment may be mounted on or across any backboard.

F. Ceiling

Drop ceiling or suspended ceiling is not permitted in all telecommunications spaces. The minimum acceptable ceiling height is 8.5'. It should be unobstructed to provide space over the equipment racks for suspended cable trays or horizontal ladder racks. Sprinkler heads must be provided with cages to prevent accidental operations. Drainage troughs must be provided under the sprinkler pipes to prevent leakage onto the equipment. They must be as high as possible to avoid accidental operation from cable pulling activities.

G. Electrical Power

A minimum of two dedicated non-switched 3-wire120 volt A/C quad outlets are required for equipment power; each one on a separate branch circuit. Branch circuits for equipment power shall be protected and wired for 20A capacity. The outlets should be mounted 12 inches from the finished floor. Separate duplex convenience outlets shall be installed at 6-foot interval around the room. Emergency power should be utilized whenever possible. If there is a UPS and/or a generator in the building then the TRs should be connected to it.

H. Lighting

Lighting must have uniform intensity of 50 foot candles when measured 3 feet from the finished floor. Indirect lighting is not permitted. Lighting fixtures must be on separate electrical circuits separate from the circuit the feeds the electrical outlets in the room. Do not place light fixture above equipment racks, cabinets, frames or other freestanding equipment to avoid blocking of light.

I. Environmental Control

The temperature inside telecommunications rooms must be maintained between 64 ºF-75 ºF and relative humidity between 30%-55%. There must be at least one air exchange per hour in the rooms to maintain positive pressure inside the rooms.

J. Grounding

Per NEC and ANSI/EIA/TIA- 607 requirements, the telecommunications grounding and bonding infrastructure shall be designed and routed through each telecommunications space. Each telecommunications room shall be equipped with a Telecommunications Grounding Busbar (TGB) bonded directly to the Telecommunications Bonding Backbone (TBB). The busbars shall be a minimum of 6" in length, 2" in width and 1/4 thick. They shall be drilled and tapped to accommodate standard NEMA compliant grounding hardware. The TBB shall be a minimum of #6 AWG stranded copper grounding conductor and should be in conduits. All TBBs must be tied to the telecommunications main grounding busbar (TMGB) located in the equipment room (or main telecommunications room). The TMGB must be bonded to the building system ground with a minimum of 3/0 AWG stranded copper bonding conductor (BC). The ohmic resistance to ground from any point in the telecommunications grounding system must not be more than 3 ohms.

K. Telecommunications Equipment Room (T-E-R)

A telecommunications equipment room (T-E-R) is where the entrance conduits terminate. It is usually located on the ground floor but may also be located in the basement. A T-E-R typically functions as the main cross-connect (MCC). It is the main telecommunications serving point for the building. It will contain telecommunications equipment, much of it mounted on 19" racks. Cables will be spliced and terminated on the walls. It is important that the entrance conduits stub up in the T-E-R as close to a corner as possible.

Typical T-E-R dimensions are 12' x 12-1/2' (minimum) for a building serving fewer than 200 work areas --a typical work area (WA) is 10'x10' or 100 sq. ft. A larger building will require a larger T-E-R.

In certain buildings, the T-E-R will be further designated as a Node Room. A Node Room is used as a cabling hub not just for that building but for other buildings in that neighborhood of the campus. A Node Room requires additional space, air conditioning, and additional entrance conduits. It may require 30 amp outlets. In some cases, where a Node Rooms is designated in a building, a separate TR on the same floor as the Node Room may be required.

ACT will advise FD&C and the architect in the initial planning stage if a Node Room has been designated. No water sprinklers may be installed in a Node Room. A separate fire suppression system, based on one of the approved replacements for Halon, must be installed in coordination with the campus Fire Marshall.

A Node Room will house PBX telephone switching equipment, large wet- or dry-cell batteries, routers for campus wide area network (WAN), related local area network (LAN) switches, optical fiber cross connects and optical communications gear. Hence, it should be located so that it is accessible for the delivery of large equipment throughout its useful life. It must be at least 10' from a potential source of EMI (motors, transformers, photocopying equipment and the like).

L. Telecommunications Rooms (TRs)

TRs are smaller than T-E-Rs. They are the cabling hubs for floors within a building. They also contain network electronics, typically mounted in 19" racks.

• A TR serving 50 WAs or 5000 sq. ft. must be at least 10'x 8' in size. (A typical WA is 10'X10' or 100 sq. ft.)

• A TR serving an area larger than 5000 sq. ft. and less than or equal to 8000 sq. ft. must be at least 10'x 9'.

• A TR serving an area larger than 8000 sq. ft. and less than or equal to 10,000 sq. ft. must be at least 10'x 11'.

• For a building where useable floor area served is much less than 5000 sq. ft., a small 8'x 6' TR is adequate.

• A minimum of four 4-inch vertical riser conduits or sleeves are required between TRs. They must be installed as close to a corner in the TR as much as possible.

Telecommunications outlets (TOs) must be connected to the TR with a home run 1" conduit. Conduits should be run in the most direct route possible. The number of bends in the conduit should be minimized. No more than two 90 degree bends between pull boxes is allowed. The use of "condulets" or "LB" type fittings is not allowed. No continuous run conduit may exceed 100'. For runs more than 100 feet, pull boxes must be installed so that no segment between pull boxes exceeds 100 feet. The conduit must have a pullstring with 200 lbs minimum test rating.

A 2-inch conduit is required to each wall-mounted box that supports a multi-user telecommunications outlet assembly (MUTOA). A MUTOA is a special type of telecommunications outlets that can support up to 12 voice/data jacks. It is suitable for use in locations where there is a cluster of machines where each one is within 15 feet from the MUTOA.

Two 2-inch conduits are required from the TR to each 2'X2' enclosure designated as a consolidation point (CP). Consolidation points are usually mounted in the ceiling. CPs are effective in serving floor areas consisting of modular furniture where furniture re-configuration occurs. It allows permanent cabling between TR and CP. Short replaceable cable runs are placed from the CP to the TOs in the cubicles. When the furniture configuration is changed, then it is only necessary to re-pull the cables from the CP to the cubicles, thus avoiding cable replacement back to the TR.

Flexible conduits such as metallic flexible conduit are not desirable pathways for telecommunications cables because they tend to "creep" and "shift" and cause sheath damage to the cables. Therefore, the use of flexible conduits as pathway for telecommunications cables must be avoided as much as possible.

B. Cable Trays

TOs can also be connected to the TR via a combination of cable tray and conduit. UCSD has standardized on using ladder type cable trays. TOs should be connected to the cable tray with home run 1" conduits. Cable tray installation shall comply with the Seismic Zone 4 requirements of the California Code of Regulations, Title 24.

It is important that the path for the cable tray is clear of obstructions, such as HVAC ducts, large pipes and structural beams within the building. Where fire or smoke barriers are penetrated by the cable tray, they shall be fire stopped to maintain the rating of the barrier. Alternatively, conduit sleeves may be used through the penetrations. They must be fire stopped as well. The number of sleeves required depends on the number of cables and size of tray. Use 50% fill ratio to determine the number of sleeves. Two additional spare sleeves should be installed to accommodate future cable placement.

Place cable trays above drop ceilings in corridors. Do not place them above offices or inaccessible spaces. There must be at least 4 inches of vertical space between the suspended ceiling tile and the bottom of the cable tray; 12 inches of vertical clearance from the top of the cable tray to the true ceiling; and 2' total side clearance (meaning, if the cable tray is wall mounted and there is no clearance on one side, then minimum clearance on the other side should be 2').

It is desirable that the cable tray originates from the TR. If it does not originate from the TR then 4" conduits may be used to connect the TR to the cable tray. The number of 4" conduits required depends on the number of cables and size of tray. Use 50% fill ratio to determine the number of 4" conduits. Two additional spare conduits should be installed to accommodated future cable placement.

Access ceiling panels must be installed at 5-foot interval if cable tray is passing though a hard-lid ceiling. The panels should be within 2 feet from the cable tray. They shall not be mounted directly underneath the cable tray.

If the cable tray must pass through a seismic joint then it may be installed in one of three ways: 1.) If the depth of the seismic joint is 12" or less , break the cable tray run into two sections, and leave the 12-inch (or less) gap between them within the seismic joint. 2.) If the joint is deeper than 12", break the cable tray run into two sections, and overlap the ends vertically by no more than 4" within the joint with at least 4" vertical clearance between them, or, 3.) Break the conduit run into two sections, and use 6" flexible conduits between them to span the depth of the seismic joint. The number of conduits depends on number of cables and size of cable tray plus one spare for future cable pulls. Use 50% fill ratio to determine the number of 6" flexible conduits. (Note: Use of flexible conduit must be avoided as much as possible, but if it is really necessary to use then either de-rate the capacity of the conduit or specify one that is two trade-size bigger.)

All metallic cable trays must be grounded but should not be used as grounding conductor for equipment.

C. Perimeter Raceway System

In a perimeter raceway, power and telecommunications cables must be in separate compartments and must comply with applicable electric codes. When metallic barrier is provided, it must be bonded to ground. The barrier must run continuously throughout the length of the raceway.

A double-gang pull box must be placed in the wall at 10-foot interval along the length of the raceway. Each box must have a 1-1/4 conduit either homerun to the TR or to the cable tray.

D. Riser Conduits

A minimum of four 4-inch vertical riser conduits are required between TRs.

The standard UCSD telecommunications outlet (TO) is used for voice, data and sometimes video communications. It requires a double gang box, 4 11/16" x 4 11/16" x 2 1/8" deep, with a single gang mud ring. It is mounted flush in the wall at same height as the convenience electrical outlet-- 18" AFF.

Indicate TO locations on the prints with half-shaded triangles. Use appropriate symbols to differentiate TOs that have additional interface such as video or that support special devices like a wireless access point. Use the symbols listed on the UCSD Telecommunications Symbol List. This list is included on the CD.

A TO for wireless access point is mounted high on the wall at least 4" below the drop ceiling. It must be designated with appropriate subscript on the drawings. There must be an electrical outlet next to every wireless TO to power the wireless access point transmitter that will be mounted on the wall. ACT installs the transmitters after the building construction is complete. The wireless access point transmitter has an 8"X10" off white decorative plastic cover that protrudes four inches from the wall. Very small green indicator lights "LEDs" are visible from the bottom of the cover.

B. Floor-mounted Outlets

Enclosures for floor mounted TOs must have 1" knock-outs to accept the station conduits and must accommodate standard TO faceplates.