Overview of the standard environment

A large number of standards are relevant to Ethernet technology. These standards are concerned with:

Installation
Communication protocols
Mechanical/electrical limit values
Component definitions

This document deals with the subsection:

which components
in which combination
result in a cable section of the desired performance class.

Three normative committees are considered in this introduction:

ISO: International Organization for Standardization: http://www.iso.org
IEC: International Electrotechnical Commission, www.iec.ch
EN/DIN: Committee for European Standards or their German editions through DIN: http://www.cenelec.eu
TIA/EIA: US Standards Committee: http://www.tiaonline.org/

As a globally used communication protocol, the IEC 61918 standard and the IEC 61784-5 EtherCAT installation profile are authoritative for EtherCAT. These contain definitions themselves or are based on other ISO/IEC standards. The corresponding European implementations in EN standards are technically equivalent.

The following illustration shows the context (broad approach) of the requirements of IT cabling, industrial automation, residential buildings and data centers:

References
EN50174-2:2000 prEN50174-2:2007	Information technology installation of communication cabling Part 2: Installation planning and installation practices in buildings
EN50288-2-1:2003 EN50288-2-2:2003	Multi-core metallic data and control cables for analogue and digital transmission Part 2-1: Framework specification for shielded cables up to 100 MHz Cables for the horizontal and vertical areas Part 2-2: Device connection cables and switchboard cables
EN60603-7-2 EN60603-7-3	Connectors for electronic facilities Part 7-2: Detail specification for unshielded free and fixed connectors, 8-pin, for data transmissions up to 100 MHz Part 7-3: Detail specification for shielded free and fixed connectors, 8-pin, for data transmissions up to 100 MHz
EN50173-1:2007 EN50173-3:2007	Information technology Application-independent communication systems Part 1: General Requirements
IEC24702:2006	Information technology Application-independent cabling Industrially used buildings
IEC61784-5-12/WD	Industrial communication networks Fieldbus installation profiles Installation profiles for communication profile family 12 (EtherCAT)
IEC61918 Ed.2.0	Industrial communication networks Installation of communication networks in industrial plants
EN61935-1	Specification for the testing of IT cabling
IEC61156-6	Framework specification for multi-core symmetrical cables up to 1000 MHz