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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 channel 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. CPE generally refers to devices such as telephones, routers, switches, residential gateways (RG), set-top boxes, fixed mobile convergence products, home networking adapters and Internet access gateways that enable consumers to access communications service providers' services and distribute them around their house via a local area network (LAN). Also included are key telephone systems and most private branch exchanges. Excluded from CPE are overvoltage protection equipment and pay telephones. 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 phones, and one could not attach one's own devices to the network, or even attach anything to the phones. Thus phones were property of the Bell System, 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.〔(Cybertelecom :: Customers Premises Equipment )〕 With the gradual breakup of the Bell monopoly, starting with Hush-A-Phone v. United States (), 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, not the telco. Indeed, one eventually became able to purchase one's own phone - 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 (and data ) operators have increasingly given consumers the opportunity to rent 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 around the home. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Customer-premises equipment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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