A rare look inside a telephone exchange

MickeyD

MickeyD

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BT's Openreach infrastructure division, which will soon escape from the BT mothership with some 32,000 employees under its twisted copper arms and form a separate company, has released a 360-degree walkthrough video of a modern telephone exchange. This is somewhat unusual: there are low-res photos of telephone exchanges online, and some historical illustrations of telephone exchanges for educational purposes, but a high-res walkthrough of an active exchange is quite rare.
Click to expand...

Full article: https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/03/telephone-exchange-video-details/

[video=youtube;q094tc0BNkk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q094tc0BNkk[/video]

PS. Not much here but watch the other video and then click on the hyperlink in the last paragraph (how the internet works) for a really great explanation.
 
The first video is what Openserve techies call the "MDF room". It where all the cables from the area are terminated onto blocks and then jumpered onto the different services required.
 
I used to work as a PABX techie back in the day, some memories there. A lot of bigger companies PABX rooms used to be quite large as well and were like mini exchanges. Sun City's had a massive DB area with thousands of krone blocks on the wall, you had to use a ladder to get to the top most pins. Then a lot of companies started switching to IP telephony and those rooms shrunk, a few of the customers I went to used to have massive PABX rooms in their old premises ended up with a few NBX systems in their networks room. I did once visit the Telkom NOC but I didn't go further than the parking lot :-( I was just the driver that day.
 
Woah! Nice find MickeyD and thanks for sharing Lupus :). Going to watch this during breakfast :p
 
[video=youtube;bUIiUXvnkUQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUIiUXvnkUQ[/video]
 
First time I've watched a 360 video - wow it's annoying.
 
The Real Deal ...........

MickeyD said:
The first video is what Openserve techies call the "MDF room". It where all the cables from the area are terminated onto blocks and then jumpered onto the different services required.
Click to expand...
I have been fortunate enough to have two LIVE guided tours of a major exchange
Now I would like a tour of the Centurion Ops Centre :)
 
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