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Anintermediate distribution frame (IDF) is adistribution frame in acentral office orcustomer premises, which cross connects theusercable media to individual userline circuits and may serve as a distribution point for multipair cables from themain distribution frame (MDF) orcombined distribution frame (CDF) to individual cables connected to equipment in areas remote from these frames.
IDFs are used for telephone exchange central office, customer-premises equipment,wide area network (WAN), andlocal area network (LAN) environments, among others.
In central office environments the IDF may contain circuit termination equipment from various auxiliary components. In WAN and LAN environments IDFs can hold devices of different types includingbackup systems (hard drives or other media as self-contained, or asRAIDs,CD-ROMs, etc.),networking (switches,hubs,routers), and connections (fiber optics,coaxial,category cables) and so on.
This article incorporatespublic domain material fromFederal Standard 1037C.General Services Administration. Archived fromthe original on 2022-01-22.