What is an Inside Plant (ISP) and Outside Plant (OSP)?

An Inside Plant (ISP) and Outside Plant (OSP) are terms often used in the telecommunications industry to refer to equipment installed in different environments. As the names suggest, an Inside Plant refers to equipment and cabling within a telecommunications facility, while an Outside Plant encompasses all supporting equipment outside of the facility.

The Inside Plant contains all the servers, switches, routers, and other networking equipment needed to process, route, and manage the infrastructure. This is where the processing of data signals occurs. It also includes facility equipment to provide power and cooling to the IT equipment responsible for the data processing. In many ways, an Inside Plant can be thought of as the ‘brain’ of a telecommunication network.

On the other hand, an Outside Plant includes all the physical infrastructure outside the telecommunications facility responsible for distributing the processed signals from the Inside Plant (via poles, towers, conduits, etc.) to end users. If an Inside Plant is the ‘brain’ then the Outside Plant is the nervous system.

Together, the ISP and OSP form the backbone of a full telecommunications network, with the former handling data and signal processing and the latter managing data and signal distribution.

MANAGING INSIDE PLANTS & OUTSIDE PLANTS

If you’re looking for a comprehensive solution for managing your inside plant or outside plant, iTRACS® offers management and monitoring capabilities designed to optimize the performance of telecommunications equipment. Contact an iTRACS specialist to find out more.