In December 2008, the voting members of the Joint Technical Committee (JTC 1) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) formally approved LonWorks control networking technology as ISO/IEC 14908, Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Q: Where can I read the Press Release?
A: The Press Release is located here, at this link.
Q: What are the official standards numbers?
A: The numbers are ISO/IEC 14908-1, ISO/IEC 14908-2, ISO/IEC 14908-3, and ISO/IEC 14908-4.
Q: What do they standardize?
A: The specifications apply to the communication protocol and associated transport channels for networked control systems in commercial Building Automation, Controls and Building Management.
Q: What are the document titles?
A: The documents have been given the following titles, as per the EN 14908 documents from which they are derived:
- ISO/IEC 14908-1: Open Data Communication in Building Automation, Controls and Building Management – Control Network Protocol – Part 1: Protocol Stack
- ISO/IEC 14908-2: Open Data Communication in Building Automation, Controls and Building Management – Control Network Protocol – Part 2: Twisted Pair Communication
- ISO/IEC 14908-3: Open Data Communication in Building Automation, Controls and Building Management – Control Network Protocol – Part 3: Power Line Channel Specification
- ISO/IEC 14908-4: Open Data Communication in Building Automation, Controls and Building Management – Control Network Protocol – Part 4: IP Communication
Q: What is the history of this standardization effort?
A: LonWorks has been approved national standards in Europe (EN 14908), America (ANSI/CEA 709), and China (GB/Z 20177) for several years. As a natural course of standards development, the standards were presented to ISO/IEC for inclusion in their standards portfolio. The EN 14908 series of standards was submitted for international standardization to ISO and IEC’s Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) by the US InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) in 2007. Through a standard balloting and review process over the past year, LonWorks was formally awarded ISO/IEC standards status.
Q: Where can we obtain the standards?
A: The standards will be available through ISO’s standards catalogue after they are published. The documents will be published by ISO/IEC; likely at the following links:
Q: LonWorks is now an International Standard. How did the National Standards efforts begin?
A: Echelon Corporation created the LonWorks control-networking platform in the early 1990s. Toward the end of the 1990s, in an acknowledgement of the maturity of the protocol and in an attempt to recognize the nascent open-platform movement of the time, Echelon encouraged the porting of the protocol to processors other than the dedicated protocol microprocessors, called “Neuron® Chips” (with the original implementation of the protocol known as LonTalk®
). Echelon offers that free-of-charge reference implementation for the previous ANSI/EIA/CEA-709.1-A-1999 specification.
Through the help of Echelon and many other companies, the protocol was standardized by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) in the CEA R7.1 committee (at the time, under the Electronic Industries Alliance, EIA). The standard has since gone through a few revisions to improve it over time, and each revision was favorably voted-upon within the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Through the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the protocol was then standardized through the British Standards Institution as a European Norm by the CEN TC 247 committee.
Subsequently, the Standardization Administration of China (“SAC”) standardized the protocol through the SAC TC 124 committee.
Interestingly, several other organizations reference one or more of the different national protocol standards for LONWORKS within their own standards and/or within their own guidelines/recommendations. Those include but are not limited to AAR, CECED, IEEE, IFSF, SEMI, and others.
Q: What are the national standards?
A: The following are the national standards (USA, Europe, and China, respectively) for the protocol and various transfer media:
- Control-Network Protocol Specification
- ANSI/CEA-709.1-B-2000 (IHS, Inc.) – LonWorks networking-protocol specification.
- BS EN 14908-1:2005 (IHS Inc.) – LonWorks networking-protocol specification.
- GB/Z 20177.1-2006 (no link available) (SAC) – LonWorks networking-protocol specification.
- Transport Media (Transceiver Channels)
- ANSI/CEA-709.2 – LonMark PL-20 power-line channel specification.
- BS EN 14908-3 – LonMark PL-20 power-line channel specification.
- GB/Z 20177.2 (no link available) – LonMark PL-20 power-line channel specification.
- ANSI/CEA-709.3 – LonMark TP/FT-10 free-topology and bus twisted-pair channel specification.
- BS EN 14908-2 – LonMark TP/FT-10 free-topology and bus twisted-pair channel specification.
- GB/Z 20177.3 (no link available) – LonMark TP/FT-10 free-topology and bus twisted-pair channel specification.
- ANSI/CEA-709.4 – LonMark FO-20S and FO-20L fiber-optic (lightwave) channel specification.
- ANSI/CEA-852 – LonMark IP-852 Internet-tunneling channel specification.
- BS EN 14908-4 – LonMark IP-852 Internet-tunneling channel specification.
- GB/Z 20177.4 (no link available) – LonMark IP-852 Internet-tunneling channel specification.
- CEA-852.1 – Enhanced Internet-tunneling channel specification.
- Application- and Presentation-Layer Specifications (ISO OSI Layers 7 and 6)
- BS EN 14908-5 – “Implementation” LonMark Application-Layer Guidelines content.
- pEN 14908-6 – “Application Elements” SNVTs, SCPTs, Enums, Profiles, XIF, and LW-FTP.
(pEN 14908-6 is not yet approved/standardised)
Interested in submitting a transfer-media channel for consideration?
Technical Resources > Guides & Specifications >
Additional Guidelines - “Guidelines for adoption of new LonMark communication channels”
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