NEBS
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NEBS (Network Equipment-Building System) describes the environment of a typical United States RBOC Central Office. NEBS is the most common set of safety, spatial and environmental design guidelines applied to telecommunications equipment in the United States.
NEBS was developed by Bell Labs in the 1970s to standardize equipment that would be installed in a central office. The objective was to make it easier for a vendor to design equipment compatible with a typical Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) central office (CO). This would result in lower development costs and ease the equipment's introduction into the network. Telcordia now manages the NEBS specifications.
"NEBS Level 1" means a very low threshold of equipment hazards and network degradation. NEBS Level 1 addresses the personnel and equipment safety requirements of GR-63-CORE and GR-1089-CORE. Operability requirements are not enforced for NEBS Level 1 certification. It is primarily used to either for getting prototypes into a lab trials. RBOCS require all equipment deployed by CLECs to be NEBS Level 1 certified.
"NEBS Level 2" addresses equipment operability in a controlled environment (usually datacenters) that will not be subjected to environmental stress. Due to ambiguity, this level of certification is rarely (if ever) used.
"NEBS Level 3" means the equipment meets all of the requirements of GR-63-CORE and GR-1089-CORE. NEBS Level 3 has strict specifications for fire suppression, thermal margin testing, vibration resistance (earthquakes), airflow patterns, acoustic limits, failover and partial operational requirements (such as chassis fan failures), failure severity levels, RF emissions and tolerances, and testing/certification requirements.
NOTES:
- Verizon does not follow SR-3580. They use their own NEBS checklist, Verizon Checklist (MS Word), that details what they believe are important to their network's integrity. (http://www.verizonnebs.com/car_cl.doc)
- SBC uses 2 levels as detailed in their NEBS checklist TP76200MP.
