The Telecommunications Industry Association and representatives of the Occupational Safety and Health Administrating met in Washington DC to hold productive roundtable discussions to gain a better understanding of applying new TIA standards to communications structures.
Developing and presenting the detailed presentation, available here, were John Erichsen, Bryan Lanier, Stephani Brewer, Scott Kisting, Richard Cullum and James Ruedlinger.
In addition to an discussions regarding ANSI/TIA-222-H, ANSI/TIA-322, and ANSI/ASSE A10.48, considerable time was spent on an update regarding safety equipment, specifically safety climb systems.
According to the TIA presentation, DBI Sala has a 73% market share of installations with Tuf-Tug, 20%; Rohn, 3%; and Electroline, Trylon, Latchways, Vi-Go and Glen Martin sharing 4%.
It was noted in the presentation that there was little to no guidance on safety climbs from existing consensus standards.
In addition, it was discussed that terminology varies per manufacturer; inspection criteria varies greatly from TIA inspection guidelines; products were not developed specifically for climbing facilities on communication structures; and testing data was not relative or realistic for climbing facilities.
