Continuation of Question 4/5 studied in 1997-2000

Type of question

Task-oriented

Reason for question

In recent years, modern society has experienced a high and steady growth of dependency on telecommunications. In this context, the reliability of telecommunication services has become an issue of high priority. Bonding and earthing of electronic equipment inside telecommunications buildings and subscriber premises is one way to achieve this reliability.

Furthermore, the evolution of the power architecture of present and future Telecom and Datacom systems leads to the need to study the impact of the new power architecture, operated by direct voltage current (DC) or rectified current sources, on the bonding and earthing of the equipment.

Text of question

The purpose of this question is to produce new recommendations and to revise the existing ones regarding the bonding configurations and earthing of electronic equipment inside telecommunication buildings and subscriber premises as well as remote electronic sites.

The study of this question should include:

a) implementation methods of bonding configurations and earthing to new and existing buildings;

b) measuring techniques and evaluation methods of EMC performance of each bonding configuration;

c) maintenance methods of bonding configurations and earthing;

d) damages and malfunctions caused by lightning and conducted disturbances in imperfect bonding and earthing conditions (e.g. TN-S, TT, IT power system);

e) measuring method of earthing resistance;

f) effectiveness of earthing electrode treated with salts or colloids;

g) method of calculation for long-rod electrodes;

h) experience obtained with concrete-covered electrodes;

i) earth electrodes for submarine cable telecommunication systems that use the ground as a conductor for remote feeding of line repeaters.

Specific objective and time-frame

The outcome of these studies should be:

a) updated Recommendations K.27, K.31 and K.35 with better linkage and coordination between these recommendations and other recommendations within the K-series within the study period;

b) a new Handbook "Earthing of telecommunication installations".

Relationship to other

• Recommendations
• K-series
• Questions
• 4, 5 and 13/5
• Study Groups
• Not known at this stage
• Standardization bodies
• ETSI and IEC