An edge device is a device that provides an entry point into enterprise or service provider core networks. Examples include routers, routing

switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type ...

es,

integrated access device An Integrated Access Device (or IAD) is a customer premises device that provides access to wide area networks and the Internet. Specifically, it aggregates multiple channels of information including voice and data across a single shared access lin ...

s (IADs), multiplexers, and a variety of metropolitan area network (MAN) and

wide area network A wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network that extends over a large geographic area. Wide area networks are often established with leased telecommunication circuits. Businesses, as well as schools and government entities, u ...

(WAN) access devices. Edge devices also provide connections into carrier and service provider networks. An edge device that connects a

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

to a high speed switch or backbone (such as an

ATM switch Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ITU-T (formerly CCITT) for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic. ATM was developed to meet the needs of ...

) may be called an ''edge concentrator''.

Functions

In general, edge devices are normally routers that provide authenticated access (most commonly PPPoA and

PPPoE The Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network protocol for encapsulating Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) frames inside Ethernet frames. It appeared in 1999, in the context of the boom of DSL as the solution for tunneling packets ...

) to faster, more efficient backbone and core networks. The trend is to make the edge device smart and the core device(s) "dumb and fast", so edge routers often include

quality of service Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network, or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitat ...

(QoS) and multi-service functions to manage different types of traffic. Consequently, core networks are often designed with switches that use routing protocols such as

Open Shortest Path First Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a routing protocol for Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It uses a link state routing (LSR) algorithm and falls into the group of interior gateway protocols (IGPs), operating within a single autonomous syste ...

(OSPF) or

Multiprotocol Label Switching Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints the labels identi ...

(MPLS) for reliability and scalability, allowing edge routers to have redundant links to the core network. Links between core networks are different—for example,

Border Gateway Protocol Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP is classified as a path-vector routing protocol, and it mak ...

(BGP) routers are often used for peering exchanges.

Translation

Edge devices may translate between one type of network protocol and another. For example,

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in ...

Token Ring Token Ring network IBM hermaphroditic connector with locking clip. Screen contacts are prominently visible, gold-plated signal contacts less so. Token Ring is a computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduc ...

types of

s (LANs) or

xDSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...

equipment may use an

Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ITU-T (formerly CCITT) for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic. ATM was developed to meet the needs o ...

(ATM) backbone to other core networks. ATM networks send data in cells and use connection-oriented virtual circuits. An IP network is packet oriented; so if ATM is used as a core, packets must be encapsulated in cells and the destination address must be converted to a virtual circuit identifier. Some new types of

optical fibre An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means ...

use a

passive optical network A passive optical network (PON) is a fiber-optic telecommunications technology for delivering broadband network access to end-customers. Its architecture implements a point-to-multipoint topology in which a single optical fiber serves multiple e ...

subscriber loop such as GPON, with the edge device connecting to

for

backhaul (telecommunications) In a hierarchical telecommunications network, the backhaul portion of the network comprises the intermediate links between the core network, or backbone network, and the small subnetworks at the ''edge'' of the network. The most common network t ...

Multiservice units

An edge switch for a WAN may be a multiservice unit, meaning that it supports a wide variety of communication technologies, including

Integrated Services Digital Network Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. Wo ...

(ISDN), T1 circuits,

Frame Relay Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network (WAN) technology that specifies the physical and data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated ...

, and ATM. An edge device may provide enhanced services, such as

virtual private networking A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

(VPN) support,

Voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Interne ...

, and QoS services. Networking hardware Internet of things Ambient intelligence {{Authority control