In telecommunication, the term outside plant has the following meanings:

1. In civilian telecommunications, outside plant refers to all of the physical cabling and supporting infrastructure (such as conduit, cabinets, tower or poles), and any associated hardware (such as repeaters) located between a demarcation point in a switching facility and a demarcation point in another switching center or customer premises. 2. In the United States, the DOD defines outside plant as the communications equipment located between a main distribution frame (MDF) and a user end instrument.