Google making it easy to find your Exchange

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Drove the other day to drop somebody off and went past what I thought was the local telkom exchange, but it was dark and wasn't too sure, so decided to see if I could go there on Google street view. S'true as Bob found it in a view clicks. Nice image quality too.

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=5368

Pity I don't live a closer, I'm about 3km's away - still waiting for my adsl to be activated, so will have to see then how stable the line is.

 

[Srack0verflow]

i dont know much about these things, but i think there's much more than DSL going on there, the exchanges i know are way smaller without a radio tower anywhere close-by.

 

[Sting]

Pity I don't live a closer, I'm about 3km's away - still waiting for my adsl to be activated, so will have to see then how stable the line is.

To provide ADSL to folks a bit further from this brick and mortar exchange building, telco's (including Telkom) install "concentrator" units between those customers and their building in order to reduce the length of copper cable required.

These are mostly called UMC's, which effectively shortens the distance between you and the exchange. The UMC's are normally a grey street box and are linked to the exchange via optic fibre cable and to your house via copper cable.

I'm not saying this is the scenario in your case. Also remember that it might be 3km as you travelled, but the copper cable route could be much longer!

 

[Kwerty]

Hey, that's my exchange too!

 

[LazyLion]

From Left if I am not mistaken
Exchange DLU, Street Distribution Cabinet, UMC & DSLAM (grey box) . PO Box
http://i522.photobucket.com/albums/w345/midafricam/Telkom_Infra/denneoord-1.jpg

Hmmm, I wonder where mine is in Brackenhurst? I guess it will look similar to that grey box?

 

[kilos]

Hmmm, I wonder where mine is in Brackenhurst? I guess it will look similar to that grey box?

If you are close to the exchange then you will connect direct and not via a UMC, the above DSLAM/UMC grey box is servicing a
suburb in the same exchange area about 3,3 km from the exchange in the George CBD (044) 874 873 884
http://maps.google.co.za/maps?f=d&s...ohn+Street,+George,+Western+Cape&ie=UTF8&z=15

 

[gregmcc]

From Left if I am not mistaken
Exchange DLU, Street Distribution Cabinet, UMC & DSLAM (grey box) . PO Box
http://i522.photobucket.com/albums/w345/midafricam/Telkom_Infra/denneoord-1.jpg

Thanks - I often wondered what the dslams look like - I thought they were the blue/green boxes.

Wouldnt it be nice if they were all plotted on google maps. Off to find mine

 

[MickeyD]

From Left if I am not mistaken
Exchange DLU, Street Distribution Cabinet, UMC & DSLAM (grey box) . PO Box
http://i522.photobucket.com/albums/w345/midafricam/Telkom_Infra/denneoord-1.jpg
Cheers
Justin Miles

The red box is the main AC supply for all the boxes there and has a connector for a portable generator.

 

[K3NS31]

let's all find our Exchanges and put them on Google maps. We can get the whole country mapped out.

 

[MickeyD]

let's all find our Exchanges and put them on Google maps. We can get the whole country mapped out.

Define exchange.... e.g. in kilos' pic, the box on the far left is a remote exchange (DLU). The box second from the right is a UMC (remote DSLAM). Bigger UMC's look very similar to remote DLU's. The newer "remote DSLAMs" are IMAX units. It gets very confusing to distinguish between them all, but you can safely rule out all blue/green cabinets and any red cabinets!!

There are thousands of these!!

 

[Stevie G]

Here's mine
http://maps.google.co.za/maps?clien...noid=v_cvdFK7N_ZR4OBAUscG4w&cbp=12,52.56,,0,0

I am just 50m-60m away from our exchange, can see it out of my window

 

[K3NS31]

Define exchange.... e.g. in kilos' pic, the box on the far left is a remote exchange (DLU). The box second from the right is a UMC (remote DSLAM). Bigger UMC's look very similar to remote DLU's. The newer "remote DSLAMs" are IMAX units. It gets very confusing to distinguish between them all, but you can safely rule out all blue/green cabinets and any red cabinets!!

There are thousands of these!!

I dunno, I guess we just need to be able to check google maps to see if we're close enough to something to get good adsl speeds (I can already see this being a big priority when next I move - "yes Honey, it's a lovely house, and it's going for a song, but the ADSL's gonna be too slow")

 

[WatchMan]

GREAT!!!! Always wanted a way to check my exchange. Thanks a mill man.

 

[elriconess]

Lichtenburg Exchange, I'm quit far from it but I'm connected to a "UMC" in my suburb (300m from house) 5km away from the "Exchange".