Customer-premises equipment

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In telecommunications, a customer-premises equipment or customer-provided equipment (CPE) is any terminal and associated equipment located at a subscriber's premises and connected with a carrier's telecommunication circuit at the demarcation point ("demarc"). The demarc is a point established in a building or complex to separate customer equipment from the equipment located in either the distribution infrastructure or central office of the communications service provider.

Contents

CPE generally refers to devices such as telephones, routers, network switches, residential gateways (RG), set-top boxes, fixed mobile convergence products, home networking adapters and Internet access gateways that enable consumers to access providers' communication services and distribute them in a residence or enterprise with a local area network (LAN).

A CPE can be an active equipment, as the ones mentioned above, or passive equipment such as analog telephone adapters (ATA) or xDSL-splitters. This includes key telephone systems and most private branch exchanges. Excluded from the CPE category are overvoltage protection equipment and pay telephones. Other types of materials that are necessary for the delivery of the telecommunication service, but are not defined as equipment, such as manuals and cable packages, and cable adapters are instead referred to as CPE-peripherals.

CPE can refer to devices purchased by the subscriber, or to those provided by the operator or service provider.

History

The two phrases, "customer-premises equipment" and "customer-provided equipment", reflect the history of this equipment.

Under the Bell System monopoly in the United States (post Communications Act of 1934), the Bell System owned the telephones, and one could not attach privately owned or supplied devices to the network, or to the station apparatus. Telephones were located on customers' premises, hence, customer-premises equipment. In the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proceeding the Second Computer Inquiry, the FCC ruled that telecommunications carriers could no longer bundle CPE with telecommunications service, uncoupling the market power of the telecommunications service monopoly from the CPE market, and creating a competitive CPE market. [1]

With the gradual breakup of the Bell monopoly, starting with Hush-A-Phone v. United States [1956], which allowed some non-Bell owned equipment to be connected to the network (a process called interconnection), equipment on customers' premises became increasingly owned by customers. Indeed, subscribers were eventually permitted to purchase telephones – hence, customer-provided equipment.

In the pay-TV industry many operators and service providers offer subscribers a set-top box with which to receive video services, in return for a monthly fee. As offerings have evolved to include multiple services [voice and data] operators have increasingly given consumers the opportunity to rent or buy additional devices like access modems, internet gateways and video extenders that enable them to access multiple services, and distribute them to a range of consumer electronics devices in the home.

Technology evolution

Hybrid devices

The growth of multiple system operators, offering triple or quad-play services, required the development of hybrid CPE to make it easy for subscribers to access voice, video and data services. The development of this technology was led by Pay TV operators looking for a way to deliver video services via both traditional broadcast and broadband IP networks. Spain's Telefonica was the first operator to launch a hybrid broadcast and broadband TV service in 2003 with its Movistar TV DTT/IPTV offering, [2] while Polish satellite operator 'n' was the first to offer its subscribers a Three-way hybrid (or Tri-brid) broadcast and broadband TV service, [3] which launched in 2009

Set-back box

The term set-back box is used in the digital TV industry to describe a piece of consumer hardware that enables them to access both linear broadcast and internet-based video content, plus a range of interactive services like Electronic Programme Guides (EPG), Pay Per View (PPV) and video on demand (VOD) as well as internet browsing, and view them on a large screen television set. Unlike standard set-top boxes, which sit on top of or below the TV, a set-back box has a smaller form factor to enable it to be mounted to the rear of the display panel flat panel TV, hiding it from view.

Residential gateway

A residential gateway is a networking device used to connect devices in the home to the Internet or other wide area network (WAN). It is an umbrella term, used to cover multi-function networking appliances used in homes, which may combine a DSL modem or cable modem, a network switch, a consumer-grade router, and a wireless access point. In the past, such functions were provided by separate devices, but in recent years technological convergence has enabled multiple functions to be merged into a single device.

One of the first home gateway devices to be launched was selected by Telecom Italia to enable the operator to offer triple play services in 2002: Along with a SIP VoIP handset for making voice calls, it enabled subscribers to access voice, video and data services over a 10MB symmetrical ADSL fiber connection.

Virtual gateway

The virtual gateway concept enables consumers to access video and data services and distribute them around their homes using software rather than hardware. The first virtual gateway was introduced in 2010 by Advanced Digital Broadcast at the IBC exhibition in Amsterdam. [4] [5] [6] The ADB Virtual Gateway uses software that resides within the middleware and is based on open standards, including DLNA home networking and the DTCP-IP standard, to ensure that all content, including paid-for encrypted content like Pay TV services, can only be accessed by secure CE devices. [7]

Broadband

A subscriber unit, or SU is a broadband radio that is installed at a business or residential location to connect to an access point to send/receive high speed data wired or wirelessly. Devices commonly referred to as a subscriber unit include cable modems, access gateways, home networking adapters and mobile phones. Example brands and vendors include SpeedTouch, DrayTek, Ubee Interactive, 2Wire and Efficient Networks.

WAN

CPE may also refer to any devices that terminate a WAN circuit, such as an ISDN, E-carrier/T-carrier, DSL, or metro Ethernet. This includes any customer-owned hardware at the customer's site: routers, firewalls, network switches, PBXs, VoIP gateways, sometimes CSU/DSU and modems.

Application areas

Other uses

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">ISDN</span> Set of digital telephony standards

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. Work on the standard began in 1980 at Bell Labs and was formally standardized in 1988 in the CCITT "Red Book". By the time the standard was released, newer networking systems with much greater speeds were available, and ISDN saw relatively little uptake in the wider market. One estimate suggests ISDN use peaked at a worldwide total of 25 million subscribers at a time when 1.3 billion analog lines were in use. ISDN has largely been replaced with digital subscriber line (DSL) systems of much higher performance.

Digital subscriber line is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), the most commonly installed DSL technology, for Internet access.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cable modem</span> Broadband Internet access device

A cable modem is a type of network bridge that provides bi-directional data communication via radio frequency channels on a hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC), radio frequency over glass (RFoG) and coaxial cable infrastructure. Cable modems are primarily used to deliver broadband Internet access in the form of cable Internet, taking advantage of the high bandwidth of a HFC and RFoG network. They are commonly deployed in the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet access</span> Individual connection to the Internet


Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is offered for sale by an international hierarchy of Internet service providers (ISPs) using various networking technologies. At the retail level, many organizations, including municipal entities, also provide cost-free access to the general public.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Protocol television</span> Television transmitted over a computer network

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triple play (telecommunications)</span> Bundling of television, internet, and telephone service

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">DSL modem</span> Type of computer network modem; network equipment

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Navini Networks was a company that developed an Internet access system based on WiMAX wireless communication standards. This access system was subsequently acquired by Cisco Systems in October, 2007.

2Wire, Inc., was a computer hardware manufacturer active from 1998 to 2010 that provided telecommunications companies with home networking hardware, software, service platforms, and remote Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) management systems. The company was headquartered in San Jose, California, in the Silicon Valley. The company had employed approximately 1,600 employees globally, including 550 in R&D, sales and administration, 450 in customer care and 600 agency employees in five U.S. offices and an additional nine offices around the world by July 2010. The 2Wire HomePortal residential gateways were distributed by broadband service providers such as AT&T, Embarq, windstream and Qwest in the United States, Bell in Canada, Telmex in Mexico, BT Group in the United Kingdom, Telstra in Australia and SingTel in Singapore. In July 2010, Pace plc of the United Kingdom agreed to buy 2Wire for $475m (£307m).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modem</span> Device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ubee Interactive</span>

Ubee Interactive manufactures and engineers fixed and mobile broadband customer premises equipment (CPE) for worldwide cable and telecommunications service providers. These service providers, also known as multiple system operators (MSOs), provision Ubee CPEs to their residential and commercial subscribers enabling broadband services such as data, voice, and video entertainment. Ubee's products include cable data modems, telephony (VoIP) and IPTV gateways, Wi-Fi gateways, and other mobile devices. As an early adopter of the DOCSIS standard in their equipment, Ubee became a major catalyst in the proliferation of this standard throughout the cable telecommunications industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AT&T Internet</span> Broadband internet service

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Hybrid Access Networks refer to a special architecture for broadband access networks where two different network technologies are combined to improve bandwidth. A frequent motivation for such Hybrid Access Networks to combine one xDSL network with a wireless network such as LTE. The technology is generic and can be applied to combine different types of access networks such as DOCSIS, WiMAX, 5G or satellite networks. The Broadband Forum has specified an architecture as a framework for the deployment of such converged networks.

References

  1. ↑ "Cybertelecom :: CPE :: Hush a Phone :: Carterfone ::". www.cybertelecom.org.
  2. ↑ About Archived 6 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine . DVB. Retrieved on 2014-03-12.
  3. ↑ ADB takes ‘n’ hybrid. Broadbandtvnews.com (12 September 2009). Retrieved on 2014-03-12.
  4. ↑ >> News >> Electronics. ResearchInChina (16 September 2010). Retrieved on 2014-03-12.
  5. ↑ "internettvreporter.com". ww12.internettvreporter.com. Archived from the original on 21 March 2020. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  6. ↑ News tagged ADB at DIGITIMES. Digitimes.com (16 September 2010). Retrieved on 2014-03-12.
  7. ↑ Newswires | VideoNet Archived 26 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine . V-net.tv. Retrieved on 2014-03-12.

Sources

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