Draft addenda to the ITED Manual (3rd edition) and the ITUR Manual (2nd edition)

By decision of 4 May 2017, ANACOM has approved draft addenda to the ITED Manual (3rd edition) and to the ITUR Manual (2nd edition) for submission to the general consultation procedure established under article 8 of Lei das Comunicações Eletrónicas (Electronic Communications Law - Law no. 5/2004 of 10 February, in its current version). Interested parties are granted a period of 20 working days in which to comment (in writing and in Portuguese).

This decision has the following bases:

Regulation (EU) no. 305/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2011, which laid down conditions for the placing or making available on the market of construction products by establishing harmonised rules on how to express the performance of construction products in relation to their essential characteristics and on the use of CE marking on those products.

Application of this regulation (Construction Products Regulation) includes telecommunications cables.

In addition to this Regulation, the European Commission issued Delegated Regulation (EU) No 2016/364 on the classification of the reaction to fire performance of construction products, establishing that where the intended use of a construction product is such that the product may contribute to the generation and spread of fire and smoke, the performance of the product shall be classified in accordance with the classification system set out in Annex.

In a communication from the European Commission, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, C398, of 28 October 2016, reference was made to harmonised standard EN 50575:2014, with addendum (EN505575:2014/A1:2016) relating to "Power, control and communication cables. Cables for general applications in construction works subject to reaction to fire requirements". This standard establishes the possibilities of different classes for various cables, including communications cables (copper pair, coaxial, optical fibre).

At a national level, the technical requirements for ITED and ITUR materials and equipment are set out in the ITED and ITUR manuals (under articles 55 and 85 of Decree-Law no. 123/2009 of 21 May, as amended by Law no. 47/2013 of 10 July).

Therefore, although these requirements have already been defined in the manuals, requirements need to be harmonised with the requirements of the Construction Products Regulation and also with the applicable harmonised standard; as such, it is necessary to define the minimum classes for the various types of building, in the case of ITED, depending on their typology and functionality, and a similar definition should be made for ITUR.