A Multi-service access Node (MSAN) also known as a Multi-service access gateway (MSAG) is a device typically installed in a telephone exchange (although sometimes in a roadside serving area interface cabinet) which connects customers' telephone lines to the core network, to provide telephone, ISDN, and broadband such as DSL all from a single platform.
Prior to the deployment of MSANs, telecom providers typically had a multitude of separate equipment including DSLAMs to provide the various types of services to customers. Integrating all services on a single node, which typically backhauls all data streams over IP or Asynchronous Transfer Mode can be more cost effective and may provide new services to customers quicker than previously possible.
A typical outdoor MSAN cabinet consists of narrowBand (POTS), broadBand (xDSL) services, batteries with rectifiers, optical transmission unit and copper distribution frame.
Famous quotes containing the word access:
“The nature of women’s oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children—we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)