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Volume 3 in Phone series
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? The Phone System ?
? Part III ?
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Underground Cabling
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LOCAL NETWORK
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The local telephone network between the central
office\exchange and the telephone subscrivers can be briefly
described as follows:
From the Central Office (or local exchange) of a certain
prefix (ES), underground area trunks go to each area that has
that prefix. (Usually more than one prefix per area) At
every few streets or trace areas, the underground cables
surface. From there, they go to the telephone pole (or back
underground) and then to the subscriber's house or to a
splitter or distribution box/panel in apartments and offices.
Now that the basics are learned, I'll try to go in-depth
on the subject.
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UNDERGROUND CABLES
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These are the 2-3 inch wide cables that surface with
bridging heads, and distribution boxes. In residential
areas, they are usually trunk lines that go to bridging
heads. If they are not residential, they are Inter-Office
trunks that switching stations use to send calls to each-
other. They are usually encased in a metal or PVC-type pipe
or similar. They are almost always in an underground cement
tunnel, which resembles a small sewer or stormdrain. Rarely
are they buried in the dirt, except in the country or remote
areas.
Manholes are the access to these underground mazes.
They are >Heavy< and will have a circle in the center with
the words, "Bell System" on them. They can be opened with a
1/2 inch wide crobar. If you DO get it open, by all means go
inside! There should (but not always) be ladder rings to
help you climb down. You should see cable pipes lining the
walls. The blue and white striped ones will be the inter-
office trunks between switching stations. The other lines
should be local residential lines. All the line pipes should
be marked or color coded in some way. Almost always is a
color code chart on the wall. Equipment is common to find
down there, along with terminal manuals, and test sets. All
compliments of Bell!
Manholes are usually off of a corner in the street.
Sometimes, they are in the sidewalk, or off the side of a
road. In office buildings, they can be found in the hallways
if there are any. When several trunks must merge into one,
like within a block of a switch station, there may be as many
as 4 Bell manholes in a square.
So, if you get the chance to get into one, DO IT! They
are more interesting than any other aspect of the phone
system. So have fun, and learn all! Don't forget the Hacker
Law: Hurt Nothing, Move Nothing, Change Nothing, Learn
Everyting! You will be busted messing with it.
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