Telephone Exchange
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Telephone Exchange by Bob Harvey as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Telephone Exchange
Image: © Bob Harvey Taken: 22 Jun 2014
Castle Bytham exchange. Also known as EMCABYT. I installed the STD Strowger equipment in here in 1971, one of the last installations in the UK. The building was doubled in length then - you can see the different roof line. Up until that point it had contained little except connection frames for the cables, no serious switches. It later became one of the Small Electronic exchange installations, a technology that BT refused to abbreviate in the normal manner. The interior was revamped again then. It afterwards became System X and is now 21st Century Network (21CN). So all calls from here are IP, like most of the UK. The building also houses the equipment for broadband access using ADSL2. FTTC has not yet reached the village. At some point in the upgrade between System X and 21CN the building was actually made around 2 feet wider. The extension on the northern side followed the 1950s design with kicked out eaves, although they could not match the grooved brick originally used.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
52.750715
Longitude
-0.532766