Field guide · Racks & rooms
Patch Panels and Labelling to TIA-606
How to identify a cabling system so it is still readable when the person who installed it has gone. Covers the ANSI/TIA-606 identifier classes and what each level of the scheme names, the termination-field colour code, and a builder that assembles a compliant identifier from your own building, floor, room, rack and port.
Diagram
A good label speaks a thousand words in only a few characters.
One building, several telecom rooms
The normal case for a commercial building. The space identifier is floor plus a letter, so 3A is the first room on the third floor.
Not used by Class 2.
Not used by Class 2.
- 3A
- 3A.02
- 3A-B14
On the room door and in the records.
On the rack itself.
On the panel port AND on the faceplate at the far end — the same string in both places.
The link identifier is the one that matters. It is a single string naming one run, and it is printed at both ends — the port on the panel and the outlet in the wall. A scheme where the two ends carry different numbers is not a scheme; it is two sets of numbers and a tone set.
These identify what a field is, not what is patched into it — which is what lets you read an unfamiliar room from the doorway.
Orange — Demarcation point
Where the carrier's responsibility ends. Central-office terminations land here.
Green — Network connections
The customer side of the demarc, and auxiliary circuits provided by the carrier.
Purple — Common equipment
Switches, PBXs, multiplexers — the active kit the rest of the room feeds.
White — First-level backbone
Main cross-connect to intermediate cross-connect.
Grey — Second-level backbone
Intermediate cross-connect to horizontal cross-connect.
Blue — Horizontal cable
The runs out to work-area outlets. In most rooms this is the largest field by far.
Brown — Inter-building backbone
Campus cable arriving from another building.
Yellow — Auxiliary
Alarms, security, door control, and anything else that is not data or voice.
Red — Key telephone systems
Legacy key systems. Mostly of historical interest, and still present in older plant.
Questions
Questions people actually ask
- What is ANSI/TIA-606?
- The administration standard for telecommunications infrastructure. It defines how spaces, pathways, cables, and terminations are identified, and how those identifiers are recorded, so that a cabling system can be worked on by somebody who did not install it.
- What do the colours on a cross-connect field mean?
- Blue is horizontal cable to the work area, purple is common equipment such as switches and PBXs, orange is the demarcation point, green is the customer side of the demarc, white and grey are first- and second-level backbone, brown is inter-building backbone, yellow is auxiliary and alarm circuits, and red is key telephone systems.
- How should I number patch panel ports?
- So that the same identifier appears at both ends of the run — on the panel port and on the faceplate at the outlet. The identifier should name the space, the panel, and the port, and it must match whatever is in the records. A scheme that only makes sense at one end is not a scheme.
- Are labels really worth the time?
- They are the difference between a five-minute move and a morning with a toner. Labelling is also the first thing dropped when a job runs late, which is exactly why so many rooms have to be re-toned from scratch a few years later.
Other guides
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