I poked around the NFPA website a bit more, the deadline for comments is October 6, 2000. On Sat, 29 July 2000, Michael Shields wrote:

I'm not sure why colo facilities should be held to lesser fire protection standards than COs. Although the standard as written may have problems as a document, many data centers could certainly benefit from a more rigorous and professional approach to fire safety.

I not saying colo facilities should be held to a lesser fire protection standard. The fallacy is assuming CO's are held to a higher standard. They have different backgrounds and different assumptions which resulted in a different set of decisions. For example, CO's are exempted from many of the requirements of the National Electrical Code, which colo facilities are not. These assumptions permeate the standard, which are inappropriate to apply to facilities built with different functional assumptions. Why shouldn't the NEC apply to telephone CO's? Is the fact it doesn't mean telephone CO's are built to a lower standard than even a building built to meet the NEC. No.

Precisely. If the requirements are onerous, perhaps we are building COs that are expensively overprotected.

NFPA 76 may be appropriate for a telephone central office. It is not appropriate to extend it to cover internet and other telecommunication facilities.