Telecommunications equipment (also telecoms equipment or communications equipment) is hardware used for the purposes of telecommunications. Since the 1990s the boundary between telecoms equipment and IT hardware has become blurred as a result of the growth of the internet and its increasing role in the transfer of telecoms data.
Telecommunications equipment can be broadly broken down into the following categories:[3]
- Public switching equipment
- Analogue switches
- Digital switches
- Transmission equipment
- Transmission lines
- Optical fiber
- Base transceiver stations
- Multiplexers
- Local loops
- Communications satellites
- Customer premises equipment
- Private switches
- Local area networks
- Modems
- Mobile phones
- Landline telephones
- Answering machines
- Teleprinters
- Fax machines
- Pagers
- Routers
As telecommunications equipment technology rapidly evolves, operators are being forced to look at used and refurbished telecommunications equipment for alternative, cheaper options to maintain their networks. The used telecommunications market has expanded rapidly in the last decade with used and refurbished equipment offering cheaper equipment supply, offering legacy and end of life equipment being refurbished to support platforms already being used by global telecom operators. As equipment is discontinued, operators and end users often look for sparing as parts become harder to source.[8]
