Episode 70 — CPE and Media Converters: edge realities that break perfect diagrams
Edge connectivity components appear in CloudNetX objectives because real networks depend on provider handoffs, physical media constraints, and demarcation ownership, and these realities often drive the “best answer” in scenario questions. This episode defines customer premises equipment as provider-supplied devices that terminate circuits and present an interface to enterprise infrastructure, and it defines media converters as devices that translate between media types or speed standards, such as fiber to copper or one optical standard to another. The first paragraph focuses on demarcation as the boundary of responsibility, explaining why ownership matters during outages and why documentation must clearly identify what the provider controls versus what the enterprise controls. It also explains how edge design influences resilience, because a single CPE device or a single converter can become a hidden single point of failure if redundancy and spares are not planned.
