OUTSIDE PLANT

Outside Plant Outside plant is the network of cables, poles, conduit, feeder cable, distribution cable, terminals, aerial and drop wire, and fiber optics that interconnects CO's and connects from the local CO to the home or customer. The local loop or last mile is the link between the CO and the customer. The local loop is mainly made up of twisted-pair copper wire. Twisted-pair cables are classified by the wire gauge and the number of …

…feeder to the serving area. The distribution cable goes from the serving area to the customer. The distribution cable is terminated in terminals that may be on ground pedestals, buildings, aerial cable messenger, or underground. In an aerial or buried drop wire would connect from the terminal to the customer's protector. Both cable distributions are designed to avoid bridged tap, which is any portion that is not in the path of the user and CO.