Broadband Compliance Guidelines for the NEC

The National Electrical Code® (NEC), governing premises wiring in residential and commercial buildings, is a highly technical and detailed set of safety code requirements designed to protect the public from injury or death. The administration and enforcement of the Code is also highly technical and detailed. Therefore, the NEC can be a source of confusion for cable operators and enforcement organizations. The SCTE Recommended Practice, Broadband Compliance Guidelines for the NEC®, Second Edition, provides assistance in interpreting, implementing, and enforcing the NEC, and includes frequently asked questions on code execution. The new second edition Broadband Compliance Guidelines covers the changes made to the NEC in 2008 as well as 2011. One of the major changes to the NEC was to renumber portions of the code and tweak language so that topic locations were similarly numbered from article to article and that wording and requirements were consistent from article to article unless there were specific reasons for the wording or requirements to differ. Requirements for mobile home grounding were rewritten to simplify them and improve clarity. Cable substitution sections and tables were redone, again to simplify and make them more understandable. Finally, a new Article 840 was added to cover grounding and installations of Optical Node Terminals (ONTs) such as being deployed by Verizon FiOS and RFoG architectures. This update of the original Broadband Compliance Guidelines for the National Electrical Code makes it current, relevant, and useful as a field reference tool.