Outside Plant

The part of the LEC (Local Exchange Carrier) telephone network that is physically located outside of telephone company buildings। This includes cables, conduits, poles and other supporting structures, and certain equipment items such as load coils. Microwave towers, antennas, and cable-system repeaters traditionally are not considered outside plant. Outside plant (OSP) includes the local loops from the LEC's switching centers to the customers' premises, and all facilities which serve to interconnect the various switches (e.g., central office and tandem) in the carrier's internal network. Dedicated OSP comprises physical loop facilities which are dedicated from the switching center to the customers' premises.

Dedicated Outside Plant (DOP): DOP means that each customer premises has one or more local loops which connect directly to the "wire center" in which the CO (Central Office) is housed. While this approach is copper-intensive, it allows local loops to be activated remotely, as it is not necessary to "roll a truck" in order to make cross connections between various trunk and feeder facilities in the outside plant network in order to effect the connection. Once the initial investment is made, therefore, the ongoing installation and maintenance expenses are much reduced. In the context of the competitive local exchange environment, the CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) commonly desires to lease from the ILEC (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier) a dedicated outside plant in the form of a "dry copper" circuit. A dry copper circuit is one which has no electronics (e.g., load coils, repeaters or subscriber carrier systems) between the wire center and the customer premises. Such electronics interfere with the provisioning and support of most data services, including high-speed DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) services.