Central Office / Headend / Mobile Switch Center

The core of every network is the central office, headend, or mobile switch center (CO/HE/MSC). You may ask, what is a central office, headend, or mobile switch center? They are above-ground locations where active electronics live. The active electronics transmit and receive communication signals to provide services to end users. These services include voice, text, data, etc. As the number of connected devices grows exponentially, optical communication networks are required to evolve to support demand and advancements, such as 5G. As the central office enables all devices across communication networks, these facilities will remain a critical component of all networks and must not be overlooked.

Faced with the significant challenges of meeting increased bandwidth demands and providing enhanced services, network operators are re-evaluating their inside plant strategy. Our fiber optic hardware and cable assembly solutions simplify the design and deployment of your central office, headend, or mobile switch center. Our versatile product families offer industry-leading density and flexibility and provide the lowest total cost of ownership.

While central offices, headends, and mobile switch center sites are focused on solutions located at the beginning of communications networks near the active electronics, Corning also offers solutions for the outside plant. For fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) solutions surrounding single-family units (SFU), multidwelling units (MDU), and broadband communities, check out the fiber-to-the-premise site. For information about MSO solutions, go to the hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) site.

While there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to network future-readiness, we have the design experience coupled with versatile central office, headend, and mobile switch center offerings to create a scalable solution that optimizes the capabilities of your unique network. There are multiple components within these inside plant buildings that allow users to send and receive signals from devices. The purpose of the products within the CO, HE, and MSC site is to provide cost-effective port management between actives and passives via port replication, and to provide a transition point between the outside plant and inside plant which carries signals or services from the actives to an end user’s device (cell phone, laptop, television, etc. ).

To learn more about each portion of these architectures and our leading product offerings for each element of the architectures, click on the links below.