What does a telkom exchange look like?

[duderoo]

So wot r the little green and blue boxes then? I have those in my area. Loads of em! but always get told by telkom that there isnt space available for me. So i take it those green n blue boxes rnt used for dsl?

Those are called SDC's : Street distribution cabinets.

The trail is home > DP (Distribution point which is the pole in your yard or underground cable for the newer houses); DP > SDC; SDC > Exchange.

 

[sgs]

Some of the older exchanges are also housed in the same building as the local Post Office.

 

[duderoo]

The exchanges are sumtimes "under ground"

Exchnage refers to a builing not the boxes on the side of the road.

See my other post.

The reason I know this is I used to be a Telkom techie, installing phones etc.

 

[PostmanPot]

nice info duderoo.

 

[duderoo]

FYI....installing a telephone on a pole can be difficult, as opposed to what we call a UG install, thus underground in the newer houses.

 

[foefie]

Telkom Exchange

For security reasons very few photos of exchanges and their innards are available.

Starting from the customer's premises:
- telephone (POTS or ISDN) connect to copper wire
- copper wire to street distribution box (overhead or underground)
- distribution boxes combine several pairs of copper to more and more pairs of copper wire
- copper wires terminate on an MDF (main distribution frame) - the MDF is the interface between the lines and the exchange hardware
- the MDF connects to the digital concentrators (A/D conversion, line voltage injection, digit reception, multiplexing)
- the digital concentrators connects to E1 (2Mbit/s) links (normally 2, up to 4, depending on load - number of telephones)
- The E1 links terminate on group switches (tone injection, announcements, trunk connections, switching network connections, ISDN PRI connections)
- the group switches connect to the switching network (the routing system of the exchange)
- the switching network is controlled by the core that consists of CCS7 controllers and core processors

DSLAMs are normally connected as close as conveniently possible to the customer premises (where broadband connections are available).

DSLAMs are NOT part of the voice subsystem of an exchange.

Exchange buildings are BIG buildings - normally having 30 or more 7 foot racks drawing 400A of -48VDC easily terminating 50000 pairs of copper wires.
The small buildings (sometimes containers) are in most cases just the digital concentrators and can definitely house the DSLAMs, since fibre connections carry the E1s to the exchange.

Hope this helps.

 

[Fire]

Thanks for the info foefie.
Please take more photos and post it here of the dslam's in your area if you spot it.

 

[kilos]

Most of South Africa runs on the Siemens EWSD system
http://networks.siemens.com/voip/ewsd/products-solutions/platform/platform.html
as the old Siemens & British MU electro-mechanical exchanges
were thrown out they normally required multi-storied building having
a max capacity of 10000 lines and if more were required then another
exchange was built on a floor, boy they were noisy diallers, then in the early
1980' Sunninghill Park exchange came online as the 1st digital exchange.
Thats why we do not need the large exchange buildings as the digital
age has condensed the old montrosities into a small cabinet.

Now you will find a DLU (mini exchange) housed on a street corner.
The most ridiculous,unprotected example is the Vic Bay 044-889xxxx next the N2 National Rd opp the Vic Bay turnout, just outside George. All the small
rural exchanges are all unmanned too.

A couple of years ago the Nigerians parked their car 100m down the road from the VicBay DLU, connected to the MDF and were running little old ladies phone bills to R5000

Telkom can also extend the range from the exchange if their is shopping center with a large amount of subscribers then they will install a ACX1000 where they run a Fibre cable to the remote location and then from the ACX1000 box run copper to the subscribers.
The most popular size is the 480 port ACX1000 boxes.

Scenario 1: EWSD <Fiber> ACX1000 ===Subs
Scenario 2: EWSD <Fiber> DLU (own no. range) === >480 Subs

Layout of the EWSD System
http://www.siemens.com/Daten/siecom...r1/templatedata/English/file/binary/ewsd8.jpg

Breakdown of the components of the Siemens EWSD DE5 Model
used in the trunk and local exchanges
http://education.icn.siemens.com/doc/pdfs/b0200_001_io6.pdf

Will include some images of these DLU's around George

 

[rasputyn]

I'll go take a photo of the exchange down the road if anyone wants? I think sometimes the big buildings, like the one I'm gonna take a photo of, which is the same big building foefie speaks of, are called switches.

 

[raZer]

It'd be nice to have a pic or two, rasputyn

 

[bees]

I went and took photo's of 3 boxes in D'Urbanville - area just outside Durbanville in Cape Town.

I saw another "combo" like this about 1km from this location:
http://img484.imageshack.us/img484/731/31082006147mediumml4.jpg

This one was about 10meters from the others, and makes a noise. Sounds like a fan extracting air out the vent you can see on the bottom of the box.
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/5049/31082006148mediumzy1.jpg

Anyone know what these are?

 

[dotcat]

this is a pic of my local

http://www.flickaswitch.com/images/xchange.jpg

 

[rasputyn]

this is a pic of my local

http://www.flickaswitch.com/images/xchange.jpg

Nice and covert dotcat

Here is a pic of the Sunward Park exchange, Telkom calls it SDC

And here is one of the SDC down the road, If I ever catch the lighties that go around spray painting stuff I will beat seven sorts of sh*t into them!! If you wanna graffiti everything, atleast fskn try to be good at it. The stuff that covers just about every flat surface in this town looks as if it was done by a blind drunk Elephant.

 

[PostmanPot]

this is a pic of my local

http://www.flickaswitch.com/images/xchange.jpg

nice paint job.

 

[piranha786]

The exchanges are sumtimes "under ground", they access it via a man hole (Maintenance hole), usually on the side of the road, with a white (concrete) cover. The telkom techies usually put a fence around the hole when working on it. If you see a telkom van on the side of the road with a portabal fence that's probably where the exchange is.

Now I know what is Telkom doing in the drain, every day. they do down underground, and I always thought why is there always something wrong with the phonelines

 

[foefie]

Some more pics

I found some pics in my archives showing the innards of an exchange.

The pics are of exchanges found in SADC countries - showing some very old as well as state-of-the-art stuff. It includes fixed-line and cellular stuff.

In general, Telkom's exchanges are in perfect condition compared to some of these sites. The Nortel pic shows a typical room in an exchange, although the equipment is fairly old, the layout didn't change much over the years.

It consists of Alcatel, NEC, Nortel and Ericsson equipment.

The file is 2.7MB. Click here

Contents:
(and some people complain about DSL, this is a working site serving about 7000 people - no DSL though)

building 1.jpg​

(typically found in the containers next to the cellular towers)

cellular - base transceiver station.jpg​

(the core equipment "exchange side" of the mobile networks)

cellular - base station controller - transcoder & rate adaption unit.jpg
cellular - base station controller.jpg
cellular - mobile switching centre.jpg​

(compressors used in satellite to optimise bandwidth)

digital circuit multiplication equipment 4-1 1.jpg
digital circuit multiplication equipment 4-1 2.jpg​

(typical transmission stuff - mostly microwave)

digital cross connects.jpg
echo cancellors.jpg​

(a more modern exchange room)

exchange room 1.jpg​

(the copper side of an exchange, each blue pin is connected to a copper pair - sometimes 4 (ISDN))

main distribution frame 1.jpg
main distribution frame 2.jpg​

(the ground side of an STM-1 radio)

microwave radios 1+1.jpg​

(the innards of all those racks in the exchange room)

module racks 1.jpg
module racks 2.jpg
module racks 3.jpg
switch shelf1.jpg
switch shelf2.jpg
switch shelf3.jpg​

(stand-alone multiplexers for microwave)

multiplex equipment 1.jpg​

(a nice exchange room - very old equipment)

nortel dms 100 switch.jpg​

(power and standby equipment when things go wrong)

power 1.jpg
power 2.jpg
power 3.jpg
power 4.jpg
power 5.jpg
power 6.jpg​

(some transmission equipment racks)

transmission racks 1.jpg
transmission racks 2.jpg​

and lastly ...
(i love these - just to keep perspective)

nostalgic 1.jpg
nostalgic 2.jpg​

 

[terencevs]

That is some very cool pics!

 

[Carlhead]

nice, downloaded the pics.zip file at over 200KBps (2Mbit DSL)

 

[PostmanPot]

downloaded it in 3 seconds

thanks for the pics and info!

 

[Lord Anubis]

Was in Sasolburg, Vaal Triangle today.

They have a huge one, massive mast, dishes and all, prolley for the whole Northern Free State!! Saw it as I drove through the town (the exchange is bigger than the boksburg one).

I spoke to a pal of mine in Sasolburg and he said that ADSL/Telkom services are very sharp in Sasolburg. Same day fault reporting & response!

He said he waited about a week and a half to have his adsl installed..about two years ago!!

JHB Telksommel whats wrong wif you guys!!