General The scope of this Standard is limited to the telecommunications aspect of commercial building design and construction, encompassing telecommunications pathways and spaces. Telecommunications pathways are designed for installation of telecommunications media, and telecommunications spaces are the rooms and areas where media is terminated and telecommunications equipment is installed. Although the scope is limited only to the telecommunications aspect of building design, this Standard significantly influences the design of other building services, such as electrical power and HVAC. This Standard also impacts space allocation within the building. This Standard does not cover safety aspects of building design; the reader is directed to the introduction of this Standard for safety and building code references. Other codes and standards may also apply to the installation of telecommunications pathways and spaces. This Standard does not cover any telecommunications systems that require any special types of security measures. Both single- and multi-tenant buildings are recognized by this Standard. Occupancy usually occurs after the base building has been provisioned, based on the requirements of this Standard; however, the distinct needs of individual tenants in a multi-tenant building may need to be accommodated by additional telecommunications pathway and space facilities beyond those provided in the base building design. It is expected that, at occupancy time, each individual tenant will design the telecommunications pathways and spaces in conformance to ANSI/TIA/EIA-569-B. As a result, the build-out design may also include pathways and spaces to support a two-level backbone cabling hierarchy for each tenant. Basic building elements Telecommunications has an impact on most every area within and between commercial buildings. Because of this, and the additional fact that the useful life of a building may span many decades, it is important that the design and construction of new or remodeled buildings be performed with an objective of avoiding obsolescence. When a building is designed with its life cycle in mind, the resulting building will be responsive to the many changes that occur in both telecommunications media and systems over the life of the building. Figure 1 illustrates the relationships between the major telecommunications pathway and space elements within a building. The list of these elements that follow the figure describes the characteristics of each element; numbers are keyed to respective sections within this Standard. Figure 2 is a representative model of the various functional elements that comprise multi-tenant pathways and spaces in a commercial building; this is not intended to be an all-inclusive representation. It depicts the relationship between the elements and how they are configured to create a total system.