Inside Plant

Everything inside a telephone company central office। Thus, electronic equipment in buildings. Includes central office switches, PBX switches, broadband equipment, distribution frame, power supply equipment, etc. It does not include telephone poles, cable, terminals, cross boxes, cable vaults or equipment found outdoors.

Dedicated Inside Plant (DIP): DIP, most commonly, is a term describing an (Intermediate Distribution Frame) IDF which is dedicated to the purpose of providing a CLEC with a point of interconnection between the local loops it has leased from the ILEC for purposes of customers access, and the facilities which the CLEC uses to serve those customers. The dedicated IDF also is known as a Single Point of Termination (SPOT) frame. From the SPOT frame, the circuit commonly is directed to a secure enclosure in which the CLEC has collocated in the ILEC building a concentrator or multiplexer which is connected to a high-speed transmission link which hauls traffic to the CLEC's own facilities-based network. A common SPOT is a shared dedicated IDF for use by multiple CLECs which are unable to cost justify a SPOT of their own-the cost of the SPOT, plus a reasonable profit margin is passed on to the CLEC by the ILEC.