An access terminal was a small port which was located within a Borg drones alcove, it was an intergral part of early 24th century Borg technology which allowed a drone to connect to it and perform a number of different functions such as; linking the drone directly to the Hive Mind, absorbtion and transfer of power to and from the drone, access to vessel to the vessels database. The technology of the access node was altered to function without the drone being required to directly connect to it, instead when the drone is inside the alcove the uplink is established remotely.