Section 69.306 - Central office equipment (COE)(a) The Separations Manual categories shall be used for purposes of apportioning investment in such equipment except that any Central office equipment attributable to local transport shall be assigned to the Transport elements.(b) COE Category 1 (Operator Systems Equipment) shall be apportioned among the interexchange category and the access elements as follows: Category 1 that is used for intercept services shall be assigned to the Local Switching element. Category 1 that is used for directory assistance shall be assigned to the Information element. Category 1 other than service observation boards that is not assigned to the Information element and is not used for intercept services shall be assigned to the interexchange category. Service observation boards shall be apportioned among the interexchange category, and the Information and Transport access elements based on the remaining combined investment in COE Category 1, Category 2 and Category 3.(c) COE Category 2 (Tandem Switching Equipment) that is deemed to be exchange equipment for purposes of the Modification of Final Judgment in United States v. Western Electric Co. shall be assigned to the tandem switching charge subelement and the interconnection charge element. COE Category 2 which is associated with the signal transfer point function shall be assigned to the local switching category. COE Category 2 which is used to provide transmission facilities between the local exchange carrier's signalling transfer point and the database shall be assigned to the Line Information Database subelement at § 69.120(a) . All other COE Category 2 shall be assigned to the interexchange category.(d) COE Category 3 (Local Switching Equipment) shall be assigned to the Local Switching element except as provided in paragraph (a) of this section; and that,(1) For telephone companies subject to price cap regulation set forth in part 61 of this chapter, line-side port costs shall be assigned to the Common Line rate element; and(3) Beginning July 1, 2012, a non-price cap local exchange carrier shall assign line-side port costs to the Common Line rate element equal to the amount of line-side port costs it shifted in its 2011 projected Interstate Switched Access Revenue Requirement.(e) COE Category 4 (Circuit Equipment) shall be apportioned among the interexchange category and the Common Line, Transport, and Special Access elements. COE Category 4 shall be apportioned in the same proportions as the associated Cable and Wireless Facilities; except that any DS1/voice-grade multiplexer investment associated with analog local switches and assigned to the local transport category by this section shall be reallocated to the local switching category.52 FR 37312, Oct. 6, 1987, as amended at 57 FR 54722, Nov. 20, 1992; 58 FR 30995, May 28, 1993; 62 FR 31938, June 11, 1997; 66 FR 59732 , Nov. 30, 2001; 78 FR 26269 , May 6, 2013; 81 FR 24345 , Apr. 25, 2016