For many suburban and rural dwellers, the creosote-impregnated wooden utility pole has been a part of life since the invention of telegraphy in the 1830s. The appearance of the telephone in the 1870s caused many more such poles to sprout up, even in urban areas. Indeed, by the late 1880s it occurred to AT&T (News - Alert) that the increasing number of distribution and feeder cables was becoming unmanageable and should be collected into “binders” and buried in the ground. For example, along West Street, New York, every pole was a 90 foot-high Norway pine, each with 30 cross-arm boards upon which was hung 300 wires. Eventually, the size and number of poles and wires became unmanageable in urban areas and they were buried underground.

 

Today, if you see a service terminal and a distribution cable on a pole, the terminal could be an old Western Electric "Ready Access" enclosure, a small black rectangular closure, about 15 inches (38 centimeters) long x 3 inches (7.6 cm) wide x 5 inches (12.7 cm) that's connected directly to the aerial distribution cable; up to 12 drop lines from nearby customer locations enter the box and attach to the binding post terminal block. The enclosure is in-line with the distribution cable and the cable passes through it, connecting to the block and gathering up the wire pair connections. (Larger capacity service terminals capable of handling about 30 wires include the Western Electric 53A4 and N-type Pole Mount Cable Terminals.)

 

And now, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS (News - Alert), www.atis.org) – the leading technical planning and standards development organization committed to the rapid development of global, market-driven standards for the information, entertainment and communications industry – announces the release of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Standard O5.1.2008: Wood Poles – Specifications and Dimensions. Developed by the ATIS-administered Accredited Standards Committee O5, this standard will be of vital interest to telephone companies of all sizes, utility companies and municipalities that are responsible for providing communications and other public utilities across the country.

 

As a material specification, ANSI O5.1.2008 updates a previous version issued in 2002, clarifies ambiguities and amends past inaccuracies. Specifically, the standard incorporates a provision outlining specific Pantone Matching System (PMS) color-coded identification tags for each pole class. The tags’ easy visibility promotes ease of purchasing, additional pole information and inventory control. The standard also includes a more complete, robust explanation of the maximum stress points of utility poles. Further, Accredited Standards Committee O5, the body that developed the standard, has added an annex that provides information regarding design issues to help users apply wood poles correctly in line designs.

 

“The publication of ANSI O5.1-2008 follows a significant effort by manufacturers, users and technical consultants to improve the standard from its previous version. The changes result in more efficient application of treated softwood utility poles and both the telecommunications and electric utility industries will benefit from lower costs in this standard’s implementation,” says Nelson Bingel, Osmose Utilities Services, Inc., Vice President for Engineering and Chairman of Accredited Standards Committee 05.