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Sorry, I call bullshit. Namely, because of this part:

How can I determine the installation requirements for Cat 6 such as termination, minimum radius around corners, proximity to electrical devices (ballasts, wiring, etc.)?

The requirements for installation of Category 6 are essentially the same as the requirements for Category 5e. Installation practices are in the TIA-568-B.1 and TIA-569-A documents.

As long as you use hardware that is cat6 compliant, which has a small cost premium, you'll be fine.

The document TIA-842 has been issued on April 1, 2005!
I'd not take in too serious consideration this doc!

when this new data center standard becomes a matter of enforcement

Which won't be anytime soon, because "TIA is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop voluntary industry standards for a wide variety of telecommunications products." (from the TIA website). They don't have the power to write laws.

or at least get some better talking points.

Consumer technology industries dwarf the Hollywood content cartel both in number of people employed and in sales.

If Hollywood were to disappear in a meteor strike tomorrow, Southern California and maybe NYC would be hit very, very hard. Though IMHO, American TV/cable would recover with mostly American made live/series content within a year or so. And we'd find out just how unimportant the Hollywood content cartel really is.

Personally, Dan Glickman's "nuclear option" [NO MORE HOLLYWOOD BROADCAST CONTENT] doesn't worry me in the least and wouldn't even if I took it seriously. Which I don't, someone else pointed out that one has to separate advertisements with something if anybody's going to watch them.

If the technology industries at risk from Hollywood disappeared, we're ALL screwed. Numbers for all industry groupings in the press release below are not complete, but what's there counts up to about $750B and 1.2M employees.

A brief google produced:

quote ==================
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is the leading trade association serving the communications and information technology industry, with proven strengths in market development, trade shows, domestic and international advocacy, standards development and enabling e-business. Through its worldwide activities, the association facilitates business development opportunities and a competitive market environment. The association provides a market-focused forum for its more than 1,100 member companies that manufacture or supply the products and services used in global communications. TIA represents the communications sector of the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA). Visit us at http://www.tiaonline.org./

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) represents companies that lead the consumer electronics industry in the development, manufacturing, and distribution of audio, video, mobile electronics, communications, information technology, multimedia and accessory products, as well as related services, which are sold through consumer channels. More than 1,000 member companies generate more than $80 billion in annual factory sales and employ tens of thousands of Americans. For more information CEA and the consumer electronics industry, please visit us at www.ce.org.

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) represents 29 of the worlds leading providers of information technology products and services, including computer, networking, data storage, communications, and Internet equipment, software, and services. In 2000, ITI member companies employed more than one million people in the United States and exceeded $668 billion in worldwide revenues.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is the nations largest industrial trade association. The NAM represents 14,000 members (including 10,000 small and mid-sized companies) and 350 member associations serving manufacturers and employees in every industrial sector and all 50 states.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) is the leading voice for the semiconductor industry and has represented U.S.-based manufacturers since 1977. SIA member companies comprise more than 90 percent of U.S.-based semiconductor production. Collectively, the chip industry employs a domestic workforce of 284,000 people. More information about the SIA can be found at www.sia-online.org.
============= end quote

I'm very much inclined to go with the poster who said there is no compelling reason why the populace or government should help them. Not at the expense of all the rest of us.

or at least get some better talking points.

Consumer technology industries dwarf the Hollywood content cartel both in number of people employed and in sales.

If Hollywood were to disappear in a meteor strike tomorrow, Southern California and maybe NYC would be hit very, very hard. Though IMHO, American TV/cable would recover with mostly American made live/series content within a year or so. And we'd find out just how unimportant the Hollywood content cartel really is.

Personally, Dan Glickman's "nuclear option" [NO MORE HOLLYWOOD BROADCAST CONTENT] doesn't worry me in the least and wouldn't even if I took it seriously. Which I don't, someone else pointed out that one has to separate advertisements with something if anybody's going to watch them.

If the technology industries at risk from Hollywood disappeared, we're ALL screwed. Numbers for all industry groupings in the press release below are not complete, but what's there counts up to about $750B and 1.2M employees.

A brief google produced:

quote ==================
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is the leading trade association serving the communications and information technology industry, with proven strengths in market development, trade shows, domestic and international advocacy, standards development and enabling e-business. Through its worldwide activities, the association facilitates business development opportunities and a competitive market environment. The association provides a market-focused forum for its more than 1,100 member companies that manufacture or supply the products and services used in global communications. TIA represents the communications sector of the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA). Visit us at http://www.tiaonline.org./

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) represents companies that lead the consumer electronics industry in the development, manufacturing, and distribution of audio, video, mobile electronics, communications, information technology, multimedia and accessory products, as well as related services, which are sold through consumer channels. More than 1,000 member companies generate more than $80 billion in annual factory sales and employ tens of thousands of Americans. For more information CEA and the consumer electronics industry, please visit us at www.ce.org.

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) represents 29 of the worlds leading providers of information technology products and services, including computer, networking, data storage, communications, and Internet equipment, software, and services. In 2000, ITI member companies employed more than one million people in the United States and exceeded $668 billion in worldwide revenues.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is the nations largest industrial trade association. The NAM represents 14,000 members (including 10,000 small and mid-sized companies) and 350 member associations serving manufacturers and employees in every industrial sector and all 50 states.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) is the leading voice for the semiconductor industry and has represented U.S.-based manufacturers since 1977. SIA member companies comprise more than 90 percent of U.S.-based semiconductor production. Collectively, the chip industry employs a domestic workforce of 284,000 people. More information about the SIA can be found at www.sia-online.org.
============= end quote

I'm very much inclined to go with the poster who said there is no compelling reason why the populace or government should help them. Not at the expense of all the rest of us.

I live in Houston and haven't signed up for vonage yet, and this will keep the wife from wanting to go this route. I thought that even if you didn't have phone service, you could dial 911. It works this way for wireless...

Revision of the Commission's Rules to Ensure Compatibility With Enhanced 911 Emergency Calling Systems

The standard is EIA-310. Like many standards, it is copyrighted and must be purchased. $50 USD.

WAPI has been portrayed as China's indigenous solution to the problem of securing wireless communication. Security holes in the Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol, part of the 802.11 wireless LAN standard, caused an international uproar following publication of the standard in 1999, and development work began on a solution. But WAPI, as it has been verbally described in meetings with some of the concerned companies, appears to replicate many of the problems the development community had to solve for WEP. Multinational companies believe that WAPI, if really implemented, will be insecure and will create a burden for manufacturers, who will have to meet one standard for China and another for the rest of the world. But many smaller Chinese companies see WAPI as an important commercial opportunity.

I'd help me if they'd rename it. Was I the only one who saw the title of this article and thought 'I knew the telecom industry[1] was on hard times, but I just got used to calling them TIA-586A and TIA-568B[2], what will I do now?'

Sheesh. You'd think that in a ligitious country like the USA there'd be some kind of TLA Trademark system to keep people suing over attaching things like 'Terrorist' and 'Total Information' to harmless things like 'Awareness' (God forbid they every attach 'Freedom' and 'From Unresonable Search and Seizure' we know how much good it did last time, and FFUSAS is such a long, ugly ETLA anyway.)

[1] TIA - Telecommunication Industry Association, not to be confused with GmbH or the Travel Industry Association of America (which should be TIAA IMHO)

[2] TIA-568B (OW/O/GW/B/BW/G/BrW/Br) to TIA-568B is the standard pin-out ordering for RJ-45 termination used with Cat-5 and Cat-5e UTP copper cabling when used for 'generic' Ethernet. The numberings originally come from an older U.S. consortia, but have been adopted by TIA for industry-wide use.

Cat 6 cable minimizes cross talk (both near-end and far-end) over similarly-configured Cat 5e solutions, just to name one. I'd name more, but I think that the TIA Cat 6 FAQ has a pretty good overview.

I really don't know what happened to my cat6 faq link. It was at TIA. Oh well, try http://www.convergencecable.com/cat6faq.htm and http://www.kroneindopac.com/tech/cat6faq.asp and maybe also http://www.tiaonline.org/standards/category6/cat6_ for_search_engine.htm, the page I meant to link in the first place. I used preview this time, like a good boy.

I didn't know the Telecommunications Industry Association kept those sort of records.

This area of the regulations isn't just "big business against the consumer." Consumer electronics manufacturers are big business, too. I'd expect to see Federal preemption of these State laws in fairly short order.

Maybe because there's no such thing as Cat7, despite what cable manufacturers might like you to believe? I could put crap on a string and call it Cat7 cable. Category 6 cable is the latest standard for twisted pair cable. While Category 7 may be in the works, it's just marketing for now.

And why did the first post get rated a "4" when it posted info from a NIC manual saying NOTHING of value about cables or comparisons?

It made it up to 5, actually, because it was both informative and insightful. If you want to run GigE, you'll be using NICs and switches. In which case, RTFM for the NICs and switches and they'll tell you what kind of cable to use. What do you mean his post said "NOTHING of value about cables or comparisons"? His post explicitly said Cat5e is what you need if you want to go with copper, but he would recommend fiber:

I would also say that fiber is a better backbone that Cu, and CAT 5e has always worked FINE with GigE - because that's what the fucking manual says.

but I suppose it's always nice to have a first-hand confirmation from someone who's actually looked at the question.

And isn't a first-hand confirmation from the manufacturer of the network equipment you'll be using even better than that?

I get redirected to http://www.tiaonline.org/browser_error.cfm.

Browser Requirement Error

To view this site you need a browser capable of suppporting HTML 4 or higher.

Download Microsoft Internet Explorer
(recommended)

OR

Download Netscape Navigator

Ugh. While I was as pleased as anyone that we were able to extend the functionality of twisted-pair to 125Mhz(Cat 5e) and 250Mhz(Cat 6), it's a pity that this has been widely interpreted as a sign that twisted-pair copper will indefinitely keep pace with fiber.
This just isn't true, and the sorry fact is that although cat-6 is in the marketplace, it only doubles the bandwidth of cat-5e, and at a premium cost (with today's run rates). Even worse: the few remaining communication standards intiatives that were planning on using cat-6, like 1000BASE-TX (not 1000BASE-T!), have lost all momentum in the marketplace.
Simultaneously, dozens of new standards have been announced or delivered for fiber. AFAIK, there currently isn't much development behind any copper-based high bandwidth standards. Most of the new high-bandwidth technologies aren't even looking at copper. 10GB Ethernet, for example, is defined as a fiber-only technology. And there are dozens of new high-speed projects on fiber, from 10GE through 2G/10G Fibrechannel to DWDM.

Video over Cat5 is cheap

If you're talking about NTSC over twisted-pair, I'd recommend against it. I notice significant rollof of high frequencies with high-quality baluns on Cat 6. Cat 5 is much worse. Coax is still the cable of choice for video.
On the other hand, if you're talking about video over ethernet or some other form of (presumably MPEG) distribution, sure this will work great if you have ethernet-enabled video equipment. My TV isn't.

Hi definition uncompressed video is more than 100Mb/sec - but 1Gb/sec over copper is on the horizon.

Uncompressed HDTV is about 1.5Gbps. 1Gbps ethernet over copper has been shipping for over a year: 802.3ab

Bottom line: For my money, I'd install a duplex of multimode fiber to each room. It's not significantly more expensive than Cat-6, and it's guaranteed to have a longer life.

It's a bit more specifically about network cabling, but try TIA/EIA-606. "Administration Standard for the Telecommunications Infrastructure of Commercial Buildings". It's one of their top 10 selling standards :)
Anixter has a great reference guide that covers the EIA/TIA cabling and labelling standards.

GSM is a digital communications standard that is not limited to frequencys.

Correct. Just allow me to fix and add some other data:

US uses:
824MHz - 894MHz for "Cellular" (824-849MHz Phone->BaseStation, 869-894MHz BaseStation->Phone), using AMPS (analog), TDMA/IS136(or ANSI-136) and CDMA/IS95 (digital), with some IS136 operators testing GSM 800.

806MHz - 866MHz for "SMR" - iDEN/Nextel (806-821MHz Ph->BS, 851-866 BS->Ph)

1850-1990MHz for "PCS" (1850-1910MHz Ph->BS, 1930-1990MHz BS->Ph), using CDMA, TDMA/IS136, and GSM (GSM was up and running in Europe when PCS appeared in the US. I know that "GSM standard is part of the PCS standard" was not exactly what you meant, but...)

Europe (and others) use:
880-960MHz (880-915MHz, 925-960MHz), and 1710-1880MHz (1710-1785MHz, 1805-1880MHz) for GSM.

Europe was a mess of different systems, and they've cleverly converged to GSM. The USA once had mostly AMPS, then diverged to a mess of different systems. Clever.

GSM was the result of a planned evolution; a list of desired features drove the engineering, and it always offered more features to the user than the American digital standards, which were likely driven by a "let's do something digital quick, before someone does it and get the market". Example: for many years IS95 and IS136 had NO FAX/DATA capabilities, while GSM had 9600 (this was fast, one day).

The number of GSM subscribers in Europe alone is much bigger than the number of all technologies subscribers (analog and digital) in all America (South, Central and North, including the USA ;)).

Although GSM 1900 require more BaseStations than Cellular 800 due to less propagation of higher frequencies, it is not true for GSM 800 or GSM 900, coverage-wise.

GSM does have less conversations per MHz of freq.band than IS136 and IS95 (that may not be true if using half-rate channels, with lower audio quality), but the GSM infrastructure is normally cheaper than the ones for IS136 and IS95 (because in a way, GSM Base Stations are dummier than the IS136/IS95 ones), so operators can deploy more GSM sites than IS136/IS95 with the same money.

True, CDMA is the future, and a technologically superior solution (bear in mind that IS95 is CDMA, but CDMA is NOT IS95). Even GSM will probably migrate to a CDMA solution in the future (***CDMA is not IS95***).

GSM is a "open system" standard (ok, unless you want to design all the chips and algorithms from scratch, you DO have to pay royalties to someone if you manufacture a GSM phone or Base Station using them)

If you want to download the GSM standards (or part of it - it's probably about 10,000 pages by now), you can do it for free at etsi.

If you want to have or use the IS95 standards you have to pay (eia/tia). Although the IS95 (AKA CDMAone) standard is open (for ~360USD), the technology is Qualcomm proprietary.

By the way, Brazil had followed USA on the 800MHz band (we're mainly IS136 and IS95, few hard-headed AMPS users left), but our "PCS" will be GSM 1800 (European frequency). I have no complains about my IS136 phone or operator, but I'll be the first in line when they start selling GSM 1800 (like I was, for IS136).