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S009 Communique to cablers

What do the 2020 Wiring Rules changes mean for Australia?

In August 2020, the mandatory telecommunications cabling regulations (AS/CA S008 – ‘Requirements for customer cabling products’ and AS/CA S009 – ‘Installation requirements for customer cabling (Wiring Rules)’) were updated to accommodate significant regulatory, industry and technological changes that have been introduced since the previous editions of the regulations.

Both standards had an 18-month phase-in period to allow the ICT and related industries to get familiar with the changes and put them into effect. This adjustment period was particularly relevant to cabling product suppliers to phase-in products (AS/CA S008) and to cabling installers to get familiar with the changes (AS/CA S009), as well as educators to update their course content. During that time – from 1 September 2020 till 29 February 2022 – either edition of the regulations (AS/CA S008:2010 or AS/CA S008:2020 for products and AS/CA S009:2013 or AS/CA S009:2020 for installation) were applicable.

Note: Both regulations make reference to the Cabling Provider Rules (CPR), which can be obtained from the Federal Register of Legislation website https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/F2014L01684

However, the phase-in period has ended, so only the 2020 editions of these regulations apply now. So it’s vital for the ICT and other building services industries to know these regulations well and to understand the changes to their respective previous editions.

Noting this fact, the telecommunications regulator – Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA) – recently issued the statement “Registered cablers must comply with the 2020 Wiring Rules” stressing: “Cablers cannot use the 2013 Wiring Rules – they must now comply with the requirements of the 2020 Wiring Rules.” So AS/CA S009:2020 is now the single applicable legal instrument as the Wiring Rules.

Key Changes to AS/CA S009:

The objective of this regulation is to set out minimum requirements that may ensure the safety and integrity of a cabling installation and of the Telecommunications Network to which it is, or will be, connected, and to provide additional guidance for compliance with these requirements.

The principal differences between AS/CA S009: 2020 and the previous 2013 edition include:

  1. New Electrical Energy Source classifications (ES1, ES2, ES3) and the relevant treatment of these systems in telecommunications circuits (such as remote-powering, Power over Ethernet (PoE), Power over HDBaseT (PoH)), including:
    1. New conductor size requirements and temperature recommendations for generic cabling and cabling linking distributors;
    2. New identification and warning requirements for ES3 generic cabling;
    3. New product and installation requirements for ES3 special application circuits;
    4. Updated separation and subducting of hazardous services requirements to address ES1, ES2, ES3 circuits;
    5. Revised requirements for protection against contact with live parts of sockets in ES1, ES2, ES3 circuits;
    6. Rewritten Appendices to address power-feeding in telecommunications networks, including ES1, ES2 and ES3 classifications; and ES3 separation of telecommunications and electrical circuits;
  2. New guidance on NBN interconnection including fibre, HFC and fixed-wireless network boundaries;
  3. New definitions for “generic cabling”, “movable cabling”, “types of persons”, “registered engineers”, “arm’s reach” and “RFT circuits”;
  4. New requirements for cabling including flexibility and strain relief;
  5. Updated optical fibre requirements including inspecting apparatus, laser warning marking, safety and labelling.
  6. New movable and pendant Telecommunications Outlet (TO) requirements, including how they are to be suspended and how the associated cable is to be restrained;
  7. Revised cable flammability and fire stopping requirements to better align with National Construction Code of Australia (NCC);
  8. Updated requirements for cabling between buildings, especially for paired conductors and use of surge suppression and line-isolation devices;
  9. Updated pit and access-hole requirements in vehicular areas, including new recommendation to provide information about pit and access-hole covers which aren’t opened with the typical Australian tool; and
  10. New requirements for installing an earthing bar/terminal at distributors terminating outdoor customer cabling.

ACTION PLAN

  1. If you’re a cabling designer, or installer, or training people to become cabling installers, download AS/CA S009: 2020 from here – free to download, use, copy and distribute.
    1. The document is in pdf format, so it’s very easy to use, especially to find key words without reading the entire document.
    2. For help searching pdf documents, see Breakout Box ‘Word search in pdf documents – an essential tool to quickly find information in any pdf document’ below.
  2. AS/CA S009: 2020 is “The Law” in Australia now, so Australians MUST conform to it, whether they know about it or not. Notably, New Guinea also mandates compliance to AS/CA S009 under NICTA criteria. Elsewhere in the South Pacific like New Zealand, Fiji and other Pacific Islands where cabling isn’t as comprehensively regulated, specifications frequently call for compliance to AS/CA S009 anyway. That being the case, it’s in your best interests to know and understand the regulations, so you can consciously be compliant to them.
  3. Key issues to be wary of:
    1. With remote-powering and digital electricity becoming commonplace in our industry, there’s a high likelihood you’ll soon be asked to design or install infrastructure to support services like PoE and PoH, if you haven’t done so already. It’s important for you to be aware of what S009 say about this under the new Electrical Energy Source classifications ES1, ES2, ES3.
    2. With the NBN now installed to almost all buildings throughout Australia, ICT personnel in Australia are likely to encounter the variety of NBN connection types, so it’s important to know exactly where the boundaries or demarcation points are between customer cabling and the NBN. Other nation-wide broadband networks like the UFB in New Zealand utilise similar interfaces at the network boundaries, so knowing what to do at demarcation points between customer cabling and the network is even more important.
    3. Providing a service to private or business customers, you’re subject to several laws that are designed to protect consumers, the network, the public, the environment, and a host of other things. Although not lawyers with knowledge of every legal issue, ICT infrastructure professionals need to be aware of their responsibilities and accountabilities. In Australia and New Guinea, the S009 Wiring Rules is a legal instrument that co-exists with many other legal instruments such as construction codes (NCC in Australia), Workplace Safety laws, Consumer Protection laws, etc. We’re subject to all these laws and more. It’s in your best interest to at least be familiar with the applicable laws to endeavour to be compliant with them. Consider the scenario in Breakout Box ‘What if something goes wrong…even years from now?’ below.

 

Breakout Box

Word search in pdf – an essential tool to quickly find information in any pdf document

When a PDF is opened in Acrobat Reader (the most common format you’ll open S009 in), open the Find window-pane by typing ‘Ctrl’ + ‘F’ keys together.

When the Find window-pane opens (typically in the upper right corner of screen), search by typing the word(s) you’re searching for inside the ‘text box’. The cursor will go to the first instance of the word(s) being searched for, while the search/find windowpane will display Select the Next or Previous buttons to move through the search results.

 
Breakout Box

What if something goes wrong…even years from now?

If something goes wrong on a site you worked on – even years ago – you can still be held liable for the consequential loss. Picture this scenario:

A fire starts in a building you installed telecomms services in 10 years ago, caused by a faulty electrical switchboard. The building owner makes a $10 million claim on their insurance company, who dutifully pays it out. The law of Subrogation gives the insurance company the right to recoup its money through any entity deemed as contributory to the loss – in this case the faulty electrical switchboard. So the insurance company lays claims against the switchboard manufacturer, the contractor who installed and commissioned it, the engineer who approved the installation, and the maintenance company who serviced and inspected it after it was installed (the amounts determined by the percentage of liability deemed by the law).

Not to worry, because you were only involved in the telecomms cabling, nothing to do with the electrical services. However, the fire report said the fire alarm didn’t contact the fire brigade because the “phone line was down”, noting faulty wiring into the fire panel. Now you’re implicated and accountable, because you fitted the telecomms wiring to fire panel. You’ve now been hit with a $2 million claim, noting 20% liability to the claim, having contributed to the spread (as distinct from the cause) of the fire. Your initial reaction is to claim on your public liability insurance policy, which seems to protect you until your insurer investigates your claim only to find your installation wasn’t compliant to the S009 regulations. Now your policy is void and you have to either pay the $2 million claim out of your own pocket, or fight your insurance company in court, which you’ll likely lose.

The simple message – cover yourself from such exposure by ensuring compliance to the relevant regulations, which can only be done by understanding and applying them.