The Role of the Central Office

Above all, the central office is a network hub—in point-to-multipoint networks it is a larger hub
aggregating the traffic of the smaller hubs that are the individual base stations. It is also the
point where the broadband wireless network connects to the public switched telephone system
(PSTN), the public Internet, and, in some cases, satellite networks. It can also connect to
remote storage networks, though as yet wireless broadband has played a small role in the storage
services industry.
The central office is much more than a relay point for inbound and outbound network
traffic, however. It is also generally a repository for customer records, including billing information;
the place where the entire operation is administered; the point where subscriber
authentication occurs; the nexus for service creation (that is, defining value-added services for
specific subscribers); the place where specialized content is cached and distributed; and the
home of any network security appliances in use in the operation