Central Office (CO)
A central office (often referred to as CO) is a building which houses the telephone switches and ADSL components for a neighborhood or town area. All telephone lines from the customer's premises are routed to the CO, where it is then terminated and jumpered to the rest of the phone or ADSL network for a region. In some locations, a remote CO is used to extend the distance of the central office serving area.
I think he's probably referring to cable RF broadband; not DSL broadband. I've never heard the term "node" used when describing telco infrastructure.
With cable broadband the "CO" (also known as the "headend" or "physical plant") is where the CMTS (cable modem termination system) resides and where all the lines lead to. The CMTS is responsible for taking the IP traffic and encapsultating it into MPEG frames and then modulating it onto the cable infrastructure.
IOW - the CO is where all the wires lead and where the cable company keeps their equipment related to the network.
Because the signal needs to be amplified and cleaned as it travels over long distances of coax/fiber there are amplifiers distributed throughout the network. These amplifiers are called "nodes". The nodes are also responsible for joining smaller stub segments onto the network.
You've probably seen one before. Here's a pic of a typical one you'd find on aerial lines.
Last edited by CataclysmCow : April 22nd, 2005 at 12:03 AM.
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