I remember the day my CO (Greenacres, FL) cut from a CB to 1A ESS. I hosted a “cutover party” at my house where I had a speaker phone pumping audio into my stereo sound system connected to a termination quiet line waiting for the cut to occur. And when it happened you could hear the cut! Along with loss of DC, then about 10 seconds later my new dial tone! That’s how we partied back in the day. I think I was about 23 years old.
@@HelloKittyFanMan. because the telephone company told people exactly when they were going to do that so that people wouldn’t be making important calls that would get cut off
I remember the cut in my town from step to 2BESS, U got the old dial tone & the new dial town mixing together @ the same time. It went on for about an hour!
Like one guy in the chain needs to fake the cut and delay for 30 seconds then make the actual cut without anyone noticing he did not cut, or cutting it themselves. Part of it would be a smaller heist at night moving the cut-designation labels around.
Nothing qualifying the abrupt change in town. Almost like one of those old VHS tapes that was re-recorded over for a few seconds until they realize that the VHS already had that stuff on it.
Most likely needed confirmation that all the old circuits were cut, before powering up the new unit. There's always the risk the new unit won't function/ short-out/ whatever and mentally, you just don't want to press the switch.
Reminds me of when I lived near the Pentagon. There would be ads for warships and fighter jets on the subway. As though some General didn't do his homework and sees an ad for the Northrop Grumman Littoral Combat Ship and says "eh fuck it, it looks spiffy, here's a trillion dollars Northrop".
@@Connection-Lost Really? How times change. Back in 2005 I remember you would hardly see any officer above o3 on the metro. I guess traffic got worse? Or they change at the office now?
@@infl do people still go in to work at like 4am to avoid traffic? I remember that being an option at some agencies because normal start times would mean 3 hours in traffic each way or whatever insanity
In 2020 they'd probably have one intern do this over a week while having 10 "administrators" managing the cutting and delivering "daily cut progress" reports.
@@stacklysm Half way through the process they switch cutting tools on you, add 3 1 hour long meetings, and one week before it's finished cancel the project.
That procedure only worked where there was space available in the central office to install the ESS. Many older central office buildings leaked space to install the new switch until the old one was removed. In that case a "hot slide" was done. The new switch was installed in a temporary building with cables long enough to connect to the Main Distributing Frame. Once the new ESS switch was operating, the old SXS switch was removed, and the ESS switch was slid into its permanent home while operating. The temporary building was then removed, and the cables "half-tapped" or spliced to remove the excess length. All of this was done with no interruption of service.
"leaked space" the strangest thing I ever saw was in Dallas TX in 1974. The SXS building lacked any space for a new switch. An addition was made to the building enlarging the second floor switch room. on the old side of the room all of the SXS switch spaces were crammed full of test equipment. on the new side there was not even a pin on the floor. I asked why and was tolled as long as they did not use the new floor space, they would not have to pay property tax on the new part.
I do not know. I was only in Dallas for a school on Touch Tone registers used in a SXS office. I ws from Oklahoma City at the time and did not know Dallas.
Cutover time is also used when provisioning services that required getting a dedicated circuit. Such as a T1 trunk, or anything bigger. DS-3 , fiber, it anything that needed a dedicated port .
I worked long distance for a decade and did many cut-overs by way of patch cable. And, it's really making me chuckle--after all this time--that the term actually has it's roots in literally cutting the lines/cables.
I worked in the 30,000 line #1 SXS machine in Tacoma, WA (MArket, BRoadway, FUlton) for 8 1/2 years before it was cut over to #1 ESS in November of 1979. Since the ESS was in a newer building across the street from the SXS, the cutover was done at the old and new mainframes. All the "heat coils" were pulled in the stepper, and all the protectors were plugged in at the ESS. It was sad to watch that hard working 1931 vintage SXS die after so many years of faithful service. We put one whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears into keeping that beautiful old machine running like a fine clock.
I mean It's cheaper to shut it all off for a second and replace it than it is to spend months or years researching and developing a system that can seamlessly transition between technology levels. If all those people were paid 20$ an hour they would've only had to spend a couple grand in wages on their employees. And the cost of the special super sharp cutting tools.
At 03:58 look at the note under the cut switches. " DONT TOUCH THIS, OFFICE IS IN PRECUT PER GARY CARTER." This film does not tell you what happens after the Tech typed in the cut message and operated the cutover switch. the CC started sending commands to all the Line Switch Frames (LSF) to close the cutoff remreed switches. This took one to two minuets and sounded like raw rice being thrown on a plastic plate.
I saw that too and immediately laughed! No protection from accidental switching. Also I would have loved to hear what that sounded like in person! As well as what a datacenter's modem room sounded like, but maybe only for a few moments.
@@macestillmace2514 Racked modems had no speakers, so they were dead silent. (other than the roar of a room full of fans.) If they were very old analog systems -- POTS fed, they'd have a relay to go on/off hook, but you'd never hear it over the fans. I've spent many hours sitting next to a 5ESS (and DMS100); I don't recall ever hearing the click of relays. (reed relays are really quiet)
To minimize downtime (an entire CO being OOS for more than a few seconds can rack up some serious fines) the new switch is connected in parallel with the old gear. When it's time to switch over, the old gear is physically cut away from the lines and the new switch starts handing the lines. As you can imagine, physically rewiring thousands of pairs would take days.
Having worked on making lines clear and clean, I can say that phone service quality was at it's peak in the 80's and 90's. And, then peoples' expectations lowered when they got cell phones. Now it's all about whether your phone is getting a strong, uninterrupted signal or not.
@@TesserId I remember busting out laughing in the 2000’s when my land line call messed up and I got some automated notification. That NEVER happened before.
"Are there any emergency calls in progress?" ... "Good enough." What does that mean? Only one emergency call in progress, and they were already dead anyway? Lol.
I worked on 5ess in Naperville Illinois for a number of years. Did a bunch of testing and support roles. 911 calls were treated very seriously. There were times in the field where switches would be dropping 40 percent of the calls and there were screaming matches on conference calls trying to decide to boot the switch
I guess the response was something like "Calls in progress, but no emergency". There are always some calls like car accidents without injuries, you can absolutely interrupt in such a situation.
He was giving it a few seconds for an emergency stop to be called. If he flipped that switch with any lines not fully cut, that 45 second switch over could turn into days or weeks.
Slightly different in UK. I did a few Strowger, X-bar, TXE 2 & 4 to system X and system Y in the 80's&90's. Rather than cut cables, every circuit in the old MDF blocks was fitted with dis-wedges, the same with the new blocks. The wedges were strung together in verts. "Everybody ready?" - "Out with the old". "All out?" - "In with the new". dozens of workers steadily pulled the strings to remove the wedges. The old mechanical equipment fell silent. The new then sat there quietly doing it's job. In the old there was sometimes a lone relay magnet forlornly clicking away, waiting for investigation and final disconnection. Then there were the faults. Defective wedges that failed to disconnect meant having to spend a frantic hour at the grading-banks wrapping all the P-wires to ground, and missing the transfer breakfast. Happy days, It bought me food and drink and paid my mortgage off. Sometimes I visit museums, and the smell of the varnish takes me back to those days.
@@KarlHamilton In some of the trunk exchanges (offices) ear defenders were mandatory. In the repeater stations you just didn't enter the room at peak traffic! Small village exchanges were pleasant, warm, comforting places, with the exchange clock's regular 'clicks' every few seconds. Warm lacquer on the relay magnets smelled homely; summer lunchtime BBQ's in the exchange garden made it all a pleasure getting paid!
"Ok all the cables have been cut in 47 seconds!" That's great, and the new cables are all hooked up and ready to go then right? "Uhh, let me get back to you on that..."
Former SXS traffic engineer at Southern New England Telephone here. I still remember the advice I was given: "Group them out high, then cut them back." Now if only I could remember what that actually meant...
I was part of cutting over the last 1A2 cross bar switch to the 5ESS at Southwestern Bell Ft. Worth in 1997. Took eight 18 wheeler trucks to haul it to the scrap yard. Gained about 20,000 sq ft of building space.
This is the sort of stuff my grandfather used to do, I remember him talking about this stuff when I was a kid but never imagined I'd get to see anything like it... very cool.
I worked with this German guy in California named Karl who did a cutover during the Christmas holidays with a chainsaw. It took him about 10 seconds. Karl was later shot and killed on that same night by LAPD for reasons unknown.
What most people dont realize, is that in 2021 - your standard copper line telephone service is probably still using the same things.. central office basements filled with giant batteries to keep lines working even if the power went out.. today if you have a fiber optic service to your home - you get a small battery in your house that will last a few hours if your lucky. All the old stuff in Central Offices meticulously ran and organized. Its amazing to see in person. The amount of time and effort (and space) that went into it all is mind blowing, and today one single fiber optic line can service an entire office building.
I have about 3 tons of this equipment to salvage parts from / recycle. A good family friend that worked for Pacific northwest bell saved loads of this stuff, the stuff he built with it is really cool, but there really isn't any use for it now unfortunately. Lots of spares still brand new sealed in the antistatic envelopes too. Kinda sad to throw away so much brand new stuff.
My dad worked for Bell in Pittsburgh for 41 years. As a kid, he took me down there early one morning when they did the ESS cutover. He showed me a little of the behind the scenes then we sat in the cafeteria for a few hours. He looked at his watch and went "Well, that's it, lets go." He saw my look and said, if anything had gone wrong, you would have seen some controlled chaos erupt, but some operator somewhere typed "ESS CUT" on a screen and ... it all worked. I always figured it was simply a switch to route all calls through the new digital switchgear. Possibly all that "cut" part represented was the symbolic "cutting of the wire" and was not really NECESSARY to the new system functioning.
ESS switches have just enough computing power to do a kind of virtual cut. The real work would have been wiring up the new switch in preparation for that moment.
I was involved with one back in the day where a four floor building of crossbar equipment was replaced by an ESS that only took one quarter of one floor. Got a set of 6 monster 2.2v cells out of the deal, 13.2v for the test bench in my shop. :)
I had the sad privilege of writing the cutover/off program and turning off my beloved Academy 2 office in the early 90's. Went from a 1A ESS to a 5E. I will always miss working there.
I was present at the cutover of the Bradley c.o. in Bethesda, Maryland in the late 1980s or so. There the cutover team had what looked like power drills, but where the chuck would normally be the drill was fitted with cutter blades similar to those seen in this video. So one guy could go down the entire frame slicing through cables at breakneck speed without all that arm action. It was over before I knew it while the old #5XBar chimed for attention.
My aunt lived in Bethesda! She sold her house in the 2000's for almost a million dollars. She always had a pushbutton phone during the crossbar days! I always thought it was so neat!
TH-cam doesn’t care about relevance. They care about recommending videos that will keep you watching TH-cam (aka content you will click through to and enjoy). All the talk about “the algorithm” is a distraction from what really matters: high-quality compelling content. You can’t trick people into enjoying something. (Also, this was a great video.)
One night my wife & I went out. When we came back from dinner, we had been cut from Crossbar to 5ESS. You could tell by the dial tone in those days. Crossbars were legendary! LOUD & meant BUSINESS!
As late as ten years ago there was STILL an SXS switching system working in the ATT building in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego. Haven't been back there since so for all I know it's still there working.
I did a stint as a line tech apprentice for Telstra in the early 2000s not long after name change and public float. Was hanging out in the Dandenong telephone exchange and had two floor I could access of the old step system shown here. I think there was 4 floors in total. Anyways the system that came after the ESS shown here(can’t remember its name) for in the corner of the bottom floor lol. Was amazing to see. Then the rest of the area was split up to house all the new ADSL equipment being rolled out at the time. Was odd seeing all this 1940s and 50s stuff next to new tech at the time. Also the Panasonic tough books have barely changed on outside in 15 years lol
Trunk lines and carbon blocks and tooth picks for tracing. Interrupters with dial tone and busy signal pacing. ATB tone for letting you know these are a few of my favorite things.
@@timothykearns2232 I don't miss wearing the big flight line / shooting range ear protectors to muffle the constant klakety klak of the linefinders. Made my ears sweat like a whore in church.
In the UK every line was jumpered in parallel on the MDF with dis wedges in one half and make wedges in the other, then on c/o all of the wedges, which were connected by cord were pulled out together by multiple techs, changing over in 2 or 3 seconds. There were weeks of setup time jumpering and the old parallel jumper had to be pulled out after the event. Very quick c/o, no chance of any shorts, but a lot of prep and clean up time.
Let’s have a shout out for the other 1920s technology serving Big Cities...Panel. Cleveland Main and some suburban offices didn’t cutover until 1974. The Cleveland45 office had 45 central office technicians and apparatus techs for 24 hour coverage. This went down to five after all switches were cutover.
+NewAgeServerAlarm I will have to visit that museum next time I head North. Surprised there's nothing down here near New Haven, what with the whole "first switchboard" thing and SNET being rather unique in the Bell System.
I was 19 and a resident of Glendale. Everyone in town knew this was going to happen and it was the talk of the town for about 3 days. Then time moved forward and it was old news really fast...
Lol nah, I just null route or MAC lock your modem. The newest Gpons we have even have a "disable" button for each ONU, and API access. So with about 10 lines of code, the system does it when someone is past 90 days. It would be fun to physically cut something though. But fixing it would be a pain in the arse.
An irreversible hard cut. I could feel their nervousness. I wonder how much followup troubleshooting they had to do. I much prefer phased graceful and reversible cut-overs. But, while I know that ESS switches could do that, I have no idea whether step-by-step or cross-bar switches had any such capability.
And I believe "rats nest" also stemmed from telephony. There are old enclosures that old school techs call Ready Access Terminals (RAT) and the hundreds or even thousands of wires inside are often just a huge mess. The industry is responsible for most modern inventions, since giant companies like Bell Labs spent so much time and money developing technologies.
We eliminated the El Segundo office completely ran cables to the new C.O. a-cut the entire city to new cable with banks of transfer switches in several manholes. at midnight the cut went perfectly and thousands of customers were cut to the new equipment in about 4 seconds.
I'll bet you that old 1984 system sounded 100 times better than the smart phone service crap sound we get today. Before we got rid of our landline about 4 years ago I had an old rotary dial phone in my basement and if I was down there and answered the phone everyone commented on how clear I was.
I worked at NE T&T on ESS #1 back in the 70's It was a nice job . There was two machines 3rd and 7th floor . We also had Panel and I believe #5 crossbar.
Coming back 3 years later, that "good enough" is still ao funny to me. Like youre calling to make sure theres no emergencies happening. What on earth did the person on the other end say for the operator to go "good enough" lmao
I would have killed for 5ESS in 1984. I had to live with E10A (a rare, level 6 French CO) until around 2000. The main computer ran at 125kHz, so it took 3 seconds to establish a connection.
What..no arrestors on the frame? In Australia we would just wrap a cotton rope around all of the arrestors on each vertical. On cue about six guys would yank six ropes each and disconnect about 10k lines from the sxs in about 10 seconds. No scaffolds, no cutters.
@@sharpe227 Nah Max, in Aystraylya our networks grew up with larger numbers of smaller exchanges. Five 10k exchanges plus another eight satellite 3k's might have covered the same area that one 80k exchange would have done in the USA. Although more efficient in the use of local copper, it also led to us having enormously large and complex junction networks between exchanges in the capital cities, far more complex than in most other countries.
My dad was an Central Office manager for Bell Atlantic for 30 years and they cut over to ESS sometime near the end of his career. The constant sound of the old switches has pretty much ruined his hearing. Now that he's in his late 70s and retired, he has lost pretty much all his high-frequency hearing--he can barely hear female or child voices at all, and can't hear any sort of high frequency sounds.
@@stereodreamer23 I believe it. I've been told that many that spent extensive time with that equipment had significant hearing loss. I remember going into the building with my Mom once (whole side of the family worked there) to get to some office she needed to go to and passing by the door to the massive room with the ESS equipment. Even that seemed loud. I can't imagine what it was like full of mechanical stepping switches. Single door off a common stairwell with a combination lock and a huge window. I can't imagine it still being that accessible now.
Very few realize the technology the goes into completing a phone call. These older switches that they're removing here, would take the physical wires from the phone line that you're calling from, and physically connect it to the wires leading to the phone that you were calling, in order to make that phone at the other end ring, and allow the two callers to converse 😉
here's the thing--when an old switch office is converted to run on ESS, the main truck lines coming into the office are put on a splitter, with duplicate lines going to BOTH systems. The way the "cutover" is done is by literally flipping a switch on that splitter, and that switch is controlled by a computer, so it can be done by some IT geek sitting at a keyboard anywhere on the planet--even back in 1984. The whole "cutover" thing with dozens of guys snipping cables was just "technology theater"--a publicity stunt dreamed up by some marketing wonks at AT&T and Western Electric to make the process of converting service from analog to digital more interesting and dramatic for the public. It was symbolic of "severing ties" with the old tech. It is LITERALLY non-functional publicity stunt. You don't have to cut the cables on the analog system in order for the new digital system to begin functioning. This whole thing is just Public Relations Shenanigans...
Why are they LITERALLY cutting the cables? Why not just flip the control switch over to the new system and then demolish the old system after it is no longer in service.
I couldnt find the exact video again, but i remember the gist of something like this: The old system is mechanical. There is no way to turn off a single control switch as the people back then didnt had it in mind. The only way to turn it off is to kill the main power to everything, which they cant do because they still need to service people (as they are legally contracted to their customers). So they have a part of old still running, and another part which they would cutover. So they built the new electronic system on top of the old one that they selected. When built, both the old and new can respond to calls. Now it is time to "cutover" to the new system, leaving the old one. While the control switch has no calls, they need to physically cut the connection by cutting said cables, then turning the new system on. They need to do it as fast as they could as to not inconvenience their customers (they can be sued for it if they take too long) . Im sorry if I cant answer much questions and if Im wrong (which im probably am). Im still looking for that video where i got that info.
@@dnwklin the new system is already wired in parallel to the old before cutting. . After making sure the new system is ready, they would turn it off, then do the cutover, then turn it on. (You can see the guy in the video taking his sweet time turning on the new system with a switch) . This ks because the new system might break if short circuits occur. Contrary to what is said in the video, those are not special cutters, but rather they are just regular bolt cutters. You can even see some sparks fly while theyre doing the cutover. In reality, there are no cutters that can cut multiple wires in one go without causing a short circuit. . Im still looking for that video. I was hoping that it would show up in my history, but it seems like I wasnt logged in when I viewed that.
@@WingMaster562 I suspect the hot cut is the subscriber lines connected to the line finders. They will have at least 48 volts on them. Shorting it out during the cut is harmless since the phone going off-hook is basically a short anyway, creates a current loop that energizes the line finder. The sharp cutters is so that when the cut is complete the cut-ends do not touch each other and continue to short out a subscriber line. The necessity of the rapid cut is not clear but I suspect the ESS has its own line finders that ought not to be working in parallel with the mechanical line finders.
Murphy's corollary for switches: the switch has no control over when it gets flipped, and some fool is just going to get that irresistible urge to see what it does.
Seems like these days AT&T would use 3 people, give them nail clippers, and just have them work at their own pace. That seems to be their schedule for putting in fiber in non-rich neighborhoods and when it comes to fixing an outage, even more so. :) Still a neat video. My dad used to work as SBS in the 80's and he took me in to work with him a couple of times; once when they were installing a satellite receiver on to roof of a building in Atlanta, and again for... I think it was New Years... ... ANYWHO, got to see one of the switching centers. Was neat... at little more advanced that what's in this video, but still very neat.
This brings back memories. I worked on exchange cutovers for Telecom New Zealand back in the 1980's. Cutting over old step by step and cross bar exchanges to new NEC NEAX61 SPC exchanges.
From Western Electric’s SXS to Lucent’s 1ESS, and then 5ESS. I am going to assume the 1ESS handled local exchanges and dial tone and 5ESS were tandem switches. Did I get it right? And to those still carrying union cards , is the 5ESS around , it are they using smaller boxes as opposed to frames ? Thx
@@whickervision742 They would've just borrowed engineers from other nearby Central Offices for the night of the hot-cut. One night of shift-diff and/or OT, or just comp time... problem solved.
![Как устроены швейные машинки? [Veritasium]](/img/n.gif)
Any emergency calls at this time?
"Yes 5 people are curren.."
GOOD ENOUGH
5 people dies
Hahah I thought the same, it wouldn't make any sense for her to say that if there was nobody on the lines.
xD, damn it all the good jokes are taken
bad time to have a serial killer in the house huh.
@@bobthebuilder759 RIP in Peace
I remember the day my CO (Greenacres, FL) cut from a CB to 1A ESS. I hosted a “cutover party” at my house where I had a speaker phone pumping audio into my stereo sound system connected to a termination quiet line waiting for the cut to occur. And when it happened you could hear the cut! Along with loss of DC, then about 10 seconds later my new dial tone! That’s how we partied back in the day. I think I was about 23 years old.
What year was this? I lived in Greenacres in the 80's....Chalet IV between 6th & Lake Worth Rd. Lived in Florida Gardens in the early / mid 70's.
cool.
Wow, I wish I had a video of that! How did you know when it was gonna happen?
@@HelloKittyFanMan. because the telephone company told people exactly when they were going to do that so that people wouldn’t be making important calls that would get cut off
I remember the cut in my town from step to 2BESS, U got the old dial tone & the new dial town mixing together @ the same time. It went on for about an hour!
This feels like the plot point to a heist movie.
"Ocean's 50"
Like one guy in the chain needs to fake the cut and delay for 30 seconds then make the actual cut without anyone noticing he did not cut, or cutting it themselves.
Part of it would be a smaller heist at night moving the cut-designation labels around.
Or a spy movie where one of the guys is a kgb agent installing a special bug on a particular line
I would love for the next oceans whatever movie to have a scene where it is literally just the first 19 seconds of this video unedited.
Nothing qualifying the abrupt change in town. Almost like one of those old VHS tapes that was re-recorded over for a few seconds until they realize that the VHS already had that stuff on it.
3:53
Gotta love how fast everyone was trying to be quick, and this guy takes his sweet time to flip the switch.
What a Dick
Actually, I fully understand him. The difference is that he was the only person doing something at that time. That is a bit of pressure.
Most likely needed confirmation that all the old circuits were cut, before powering up the new unit. There's always the risk the new unit won't function/ short-out/ whatever and mentally, you just don't want to press the switch.
Also tbf they stopped their timer when the cutters were done, not when he flipped the switch and also I must say that 47 seconds is damn impressive
Types "I'm a HaCk3r" Then randomly flips a switch he has been eyeing since the first day of work.
I'm definitely taking all my cutover business to Western Electric. Their speed is incredible!
Reminds me of when I lived near the Pentagon. There would be ads for warships and fighter jets on the subway. As though some General didn't do his homework and sees an ad for the Northrop Grumman Littoral Combat Ship and says "eh fuck it, it looks spiffy, here's a trillion dollars Northrop".
@@tradtke101 The subway is practically littered with military generals in full dress
@@Connection-Lost Really? How times change. Back in 2005 I remember you would hardly see any officer above o3 on the metro. I guess traffic got worse? Or they change at the office now?
@@tradtke101 Anything’s better than sitting on the god damn Beltway
@@infl do people still go in to work at like 4am to avoid traffic? I remember that being an option at some agencies because normal start times would mean 3 hours in traffic each way or whatever insanity
In 2020 they'd probably have one intern do this over a week while having 10 "administrators" managing the cutting and delivering "daily cut progress" reports.
Thats "Agile" for you
@@stacklysm Half way through the process they switch cutting tools on you, add 3 1 hour long meetings, and one week before it's finished cancel the project.
*tilted crying whilst laughing emoji*
@@TheRocketSmith I miss the Waterfall days
I've never related to a comment so much on youtube before. I feel sick.
That procedure only worked where there was space available in the central office to install the ESS. Many older central office buildings leaked space to install the new switch until the old one was removed. In that case a "hot slide" was done. The new switch was installed in a temporary building with cables long enough to connect to the Main Distributing Frame. Once the new ESS switch was operating, the old SXS switch was removed, and the ESS switch was slid into its permanent home while operating. The temporary building was then removed, and the cables "half-tapped" or spliced to remove the excess length. All of this was done with no interruption of service.
"leaked space" the strangest thing I ever saw was in Dallas TX in 1974. The SXS building lacked any space for a new switch. An addition was made to the building enlarging the second floor switch room. on the old side of the room all of the SXS switch spaces were crammed full of test equipment. on the new side there was not even a pin on the floor. I asked why and was tolled as long as they did not use the new floor space, they would not have to pay property tax on the new part.
@@gpwgpw555 Where was that located? I've only heard of the co in Farmers Branch/Carrollton, which I think is also a billing facility. Not sure though.
I do not know. I was only in Dallas for a school on Touch Tone registers used in a SXS office. I ws from Oklahoma City at the time and did not know Dallas.
Awesome follow up on this vid!
Around here they built new buildings for the electronics and just redid the wires. They still use the old buildings as storage.
The greatest mystery is, what did that woman hear on the phone when asking if there were any 911 calls in progress that was "good enough"?
"No emergency calls, but we're right in the middle of ordering pizza."
Probably just a domestic violence 911 call
SkyWolfAlpha right!?! “Eh we got a few calls on the line but they are all pretty pointless.”
Busy signal
Considering the age, probably something racist...
"Have you got any emergency calls going on at this time?"
" *Good enough* , all clear Don!"
Somewhere that night someone died from choking on pretzel. Guaranteed
@@ateazy7801 lmao
The person on the other end
probably said "yes, but only a few."
The operator said "Yeah, just 70 but their all out of south central so it's a slow day."
LMAOOOOOOOOOO
I did not realize that "cut over" was literal. That's impressive.
Cutover time is also used when provisioning services that required getting a dedicated circuit. Such as a T1 trunk, or anything bigger. DS-3 , fiber, it anything that needed a dedicated port .
a computer bug was a moth
@@joeporter4920 Someone watched Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
@@tradtke101 read a book on ENIAC yeas ago
I worked long distance for a decade and did many cut-overs by way of patch cable. And, it's really making me chuckle--after all this time--that the term actually has it's roots in literally cutting the lines/cables.
I worked in the 30,000 line #1 SXS machine in Tacoma, WA (MArket, BRoadway, FUlton) for 8 1/2 years before it was cut over to #1 ESS in November of 1979. Since the ESS was in a newer building across the street from the SXS, the cutover was done at the old and new mainframes.
All the "heat coils" were pulled in the stepper, and all the protectors were plugged in at the ESS.
It was sad to watch that hard working 1931 vintage SXS die after so many years of faithful service. We put one whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears into keeping that beautiful old machine running like a fine clock.
Have you been to the local Telecom museum? It has SXS, panel, #1XB and #5XB equipment running.
@@lohphat, yup! Been there. 😁
RIP Tom
Do you need some time to yourself?😂😂😂
Why did they keep Step by step running so long? I heard they were expensive to maintain!
No one searched for this video, but here we are watching it.
at&t wireless is so crappy, they are probably promoting this to get their name out of the gutter.
That is the wonder of TH-cam you can also browse videos and not just search them. Are you 8 or just met with TH-cam? Your comment is pointless.
@@010111010110 nope, but it’s obvious you missed the subcontext of my comment. Do you always take everything literally or is this your first time?
Lol
But I did search for this video
>Multiple training and briefing meetings
>Special tools and sharpening services
>50 employees working at once
" " E C O N O M I C A L " "
Ahh, the 80s
I miss them
I mean It's cheaper to shut it all off for a second and replace it than it is to spend months or years researching and developing a system that can seamlessly transition between technology levels. If all those people were paid 20$ an hour they would've only had to spend a couple grand in wages on their employees. And the cost of the special super sharp cutting tools.
No fatties
@@1943vermork Other than your mother, of course.
@@viktorreznov4718 Damn...
"Hey Bob, you wanna get paid for a few hours of overtime this Saturday? You just need to use garden shears to cut 20 cables and that's it!"
well actually you only get 47 seconds of overtime.
@@riphihe Training, and waiting for the all clear
As a cable splicer, I find branch loppers are excellent for most cables.
2:00 And the guy at the left of the screen gets something special to smoke.
@@andrewsmith9174 I'll have to give that a try!
At 03:58 look at the note under the cut switches. " DONT TOUCH THIS, OFFICE IS IN PRECUT PER GARY CARTER." This film does not tell you what happens after the Tech typed in the cut message and operated the cutover switch. the CC started sending commands to all the Line Switch Frames (LSF) to close the cutoff remreed switches. This took one to two minuets and sounded like raw rice being thrown on a plastic plate.
I saw that too and immediately laughed! No protection from accidental switching. Also I would have loved to hear what that sounded like in person! As well as what a datacenter's modem room sounded like, but maybe only for a few moments.
@@macestillmace2514 Racked modems had no speakers, so they were dead silent. (other than the roar of a room full of fans.) If they were very old analog systems -- POTS fed, they'd have a relay to go on/off hook, but you'd never hear it over the fans.
I've spent many hours sitting next to a 5ESS (and DMS100); I don't recall ever hearing the click of relays. (reed relays are really quiet)
Why did the old cables require physical cuts in order to initiate the cut to the new system?
To minimize downtime (an entire CO being OOS for more than a few seconds can rack up some serious fines) the new switch is connected in parallel with the old gear. When it's time to switch over, the old gear is physically cut away from the lines and the new switch starts handing the lines. As you can imagine, physically rewiring thousands of pairs would take days.
@@jfbeam thanks for the reply. I guess I'm just confused why the old line needs cut before the new system is able to take over?
AT&T Service in a nutshell: "GoOd EnOuGh"
It was actually of quite-high quality...
I work in IT. They don’t want it good. They want it good enough.
Not to be confused with John B. Goodenough...
Having worked on making lines clear and clean, I can say that phone service quality was at it's peak in the 80's and 90's. And, then peoples' expectations lowered when they got cell phones. Now it's all about whether your phone is getting a strong, uninterrupted signal or not.
@@TesserId I remember busting out laughing in the 2000’s when my land line call messed up and I got some automated notification. That NEVER happened before.
"Are there any emergency calls in progress?"
...
"Good enough."
What does that mean? Only one emergency call in progress, and they were already dead anyway? Lol.
I had the job of calling the 911 PSAP like the woman at 02:51. After the cut I made test calls to 911 to be sure the calls would go thru.
I worked on 5ess in Naperville Illinois for a number of years. Did a bunch of testing and support roles. 911 calls were treated very seriously. There were times in the field where switches would be dropping 40 percent of the calls and there were screaming matches on conference calls trying to decide to boot the switch
"yeah but they're already gunna die so"
"Hey, Mary Ellen, yah we've got a few on the line but they're all poor, so you should be fine to proceed."
I guess the response was something like "Calls in progress, but no emergency". There are always some calls like car accidents without injuries, you can absolutely interrupt in such a situation.
TH-cam recommendations may be drunk af but i'm digging this music so im ok with it.
I'm happy I'm not the only one
I hate the music in these old videos like it's the plague, almost makes me uncomfortable.
I like how the cutters are overworking themselves to go as fast as possible. The guy on the keyboard slowly reaches over to flip the switch down.
The switch guy worked for Pacific, not Western Electric?
He was giving it a few seconds for an emergency stop to be called. If he flipped that switch with any lines not fully cut, that 45 second switch over could turn into days or weeks.
@@mstrickk1 Can you explain why? Would there be an electrical short? After the lines are cut, what's done to bring the other system online? Thanks!
@@dstrome older digital circuits do not do well when you send voltage the wrong way.
I've watched this at least once a year for the last 3-4 years because it pops up in my feed, it's still fun to watch.
It's fascinating to look at from our perspective here in "the future."
@@geekingoutaboutdotcom8719 It seems like people were just more normal back then.
Jeez, now I am going to have this zippy 80's music stuck in my head all day.
that was70's music encroaching into the 80's
Yeah totally 70s youngster
Found it! th-cam.com/video/_yibG8snVMc/w-d-xo.html
@@brianrivera Thank you, Mr. Rivera!! You are awesome!
@@brianrivera any idea on the genre tho? sorry for this sudden pop-up in your inbox m8 hahaha
I can't believe my grandfather Rick is in this. How awesome can't wait to show him!!
How did he react?
Let us know his reaction, please. :)
Your Grandfather is a badass, tell him thank you for his hard work!
Can someone like my comment when he reacted, as a reminder, thanks in advance.
Edit: How I didn't see this one failing is beyond me.
ask him why that punk was hollerin like someone cut off his little toe
Slightly different in UK. I did a few Strowger, X-bar, TXE 2 & 4 to system X and system Y in the 80's&90's. Rather than cut cables, every circuit in the old MDF blocks was fitted with dis-wedges, the same with the new blocks. The wedges were strung together in verts. "Everybody ready?" - "Out with the old". "All out?" - "In with the new". dozens of workers steadily pulled the strings to remove the wedges. The old mechanical equipment fell silent. The new then sat there quietly doing it's job. In the old there was sometimes a lone relay magnet forlornly clicking away, waiting for investigation and final disconnection.
Then there were the faults. Defective wedges that failed to disconnect meant having to spend a frantic hour at the grading-banks wrapping all the P-wires to ground, and missing the transfer breakfast. Happy days, It bought me food and drink and paid my mortgage off. Sometimes I visit museums, and the smell of the varnish takes me back to those days.
Would love to hear a room full of Strowger switches going full pelt. By all accounts it was quite impressive! Isn't there still some System X live?
@@KarlHamilton here's a neat one with some insane noise! th-cam.com/video/gkXzljS74Nw/w-d-xo.html
@@KarlHamilton In some of the trunk exchanges (offices) ear defenders were mandatory. In the repeater stations you just didn't enter the room at peak traffic! Small village exchanges were pleasant, warm, comforting places, with the exchange clock's regular 'clicks' every few seconds. Warm lacquer on the relay magnets smelled homely; summer lunchtime BBQ's in the exchange garden made it all a pleasure getting paid!
@@nlo114 Haha! That sounds incredible. My time with BT was far less romantic. Still love it though.
"Ok all the cables have been cut in 47 seconds!" That's great, and the new cables are all hooked up and ready to go then right? "Uhh, let me get back to you on that..."
WOW. Sharpened in such a way to cut cleanly and without shorts? Do say... please share this alien technology with the rest of us 😉
As an electrician I was like wtf but I forgot about the aliens.
I see sparks flying at 3:40, so something was shortened anyway. 🙂
@@fredrikjohansson6515 there's a scream around that time but I didn't see a flash??
Look again. He cuts 4 more cables after the sparks.
@@fredrikjohansson6515 I watched it again at .25 slow motion. There definitely is something. Thanks!
Former SXS traffic engineer at Southern New England Telephone here. I still remember the advice I was given: "Group them out high, then cut them back." Now if only I could remember what that actually meant...
I was part of cutting over the last 1A2 cross bar switch to the 5ESS at Southwestern Bell Ft. Worth in 1997. Took eight 18 wheeler trucks to haul it to the scrap yard. Gained about 20,000 sq ft of building space.
This is the sort of stuff my grandfather used to do, I remember him talking about this stuff when I was a kid but never imagined I'd get to see anything like it... very cool.
I worked with this German guy in California named Karl who did a cutover during the Christmas holidays with a chainsaw. It took him about 10 seconds. Karl was later shot and killed on that same night by LAPD for reasons unknown.
Fucking cops 😢
LOL, missed the joke fellas. Die Hard... th-cam.com/video/UxLAkabYW34/w-d-xo.html
Nein! Nein!
I heard it was a really trick pneumatically powered chainsaw.
Ho! Ho! Ho!
What most people dont realize, is that in 2021 - your standard copper line telephone service is probably still using the same things.. central office basements filled with giant batteries to keep lines working even if the power went out.. today if you have a fiber optic service to your home - you get a small battery in your house that will last a few hours if your lucky. All the old stuff in Central Offices meticulously ran and organized. Its amazing to see in person. The amount of time and effort (and space) that went into it all is mind blowing, and today one single fiber optic line can service an entire office building.
There is no copper phone service anymore. It's done.
If people order phone service, it is delivered either by cable or DSL.
I know it's difficult to believe, but it really happened.
@@bsadewitz there is, depending on areas. But it's being phased out where it can be.
@@kctyphoon Is it still? I have been unable to find a firm answer on this online.
Next job for the technicians: Remove hundreds of tons of switching equipment to the scrapyard.
Psyche! “Abandon in place”
A lot of copper to recover. Need to make room for thenext generation of switch in the future. Even if it takes up 3% of the room of the old.
@@haweater1555 It's crazy going into old colos and seeing tons of empty space that was clearly once occupied. Technology is nuts.
@@michaelzindel2382 all that empty space would be perfect for data centers/server farms.
I have about 3 tons of this equipment to salvage parts from / recycle. A good family friend that worked for Pacific northwest bell saved loads of this stuff, the stuff he built with it is really cool, but there really isn't any use for it now unfortunately. Lots of spares still brand new sealed in the antistatic envelopes too. Kinda sad to throw away so much brand new stuff.
Love the little post-it near the switches saying "DON'T TOUCH THIS OFFICE IS IN PRECUT! PER GARY CARTER"
My dad worked for Bell in Pittsburgh for 41 years. As a kid, he took me down there early one morning when they did the ESS cutover. He showed me a little of the behind the scenes then we sat in the cafeteria for a few hours. He looked at his watch and went "Well, that's it, lets go." He saw my look and said, if anything had gone wrong, you would have seen some controlled chaos erupt, but some operator somewhere typed "ESS CUT" on a screen and ... it all worked.
I always figured it was simply a switch to route all calls through the new digital switchgear. Possibly all that "cut" part represented was the symbolic "cutting of the wire" and was not really NECESSARY to the new system functioning.
ESS switches have just enough computing power to do a kind of virtual cut. The real work would have been wiring up the new switch in preparation for that moment.
This was soooo much more entertaining than I thought it would be
OMG, the comments on these old videos like this are priceless
They annoy me. It’s quite hard to find an intelligent comment with some interesting information.
when youre on the verge of death but she hits you with that
*G O O D E N O U G H*
That's when you say back to her, "that'll do pig, that'll do". :)
I was involved with one back in the day where a four floor building of crossbar equipment was replaced by an ESS that only took one quarter of one floor. Got a set of 6 monster 2.2v cells out of the deal, 13.2v for the test bench in my shop. :)
"Do we have any emergency calls at this time? Good enough" ..."CUT!"
I had the sad privilege of writing the cutover/off program and turning off my beloved Academy 2 office in the early 90's. Went from a 1A ESS to a 5E. I will always miss working there.
I feel like this should have been a scene in one of the earlier "Die Hard" movies.
I was present at the cutover of the Bradley c.o. in Bethesda, Maryland in the late 1980s or so. There the cutover team had what looked like power drills, but where the chuck would normally be the drill was fitted with cutter blades similar to those seen in this video. So one guy could go down the entire frame slicing through cables at breakneck speed without all that arm action. It was over before I knew it while the old #5XBar chimed for attention.
nice hashtag game, grampa
First C.O. I'd seen was on Wisconsin in Bethesda. It was a step-by-step.
My aunt lived in Bethesda! She sold her house in the 2000's for almost a million dollars. She always had a pushbutton phone during the crossbar days! I always thought it was so neat!
@@lolbots Number 5 cross bar you idiot.
TH-cam: Well this is from 1984, that relevant right, let’s recommend it.
Apparently they have slipped from 1984. I've had a high-availability ATT MPLS down for days now.
Do you know how you would've found it otherwise?
Oh yes just useful
TH-cam doesn’t care about relevance. They care about recommending videos that will keep you watching TH-cam (aka content you will click through to and enjoy). All the talk about “the algorithm” is a distraction from what really matters: high-quality compelling content. You can’t trick people into enjoying something.
(Also, this was a great video.)
@@RealWorldPolice yes!
One night my wife & I went out. When we came back from dinner, we had been cut from Crossbar to 5ESS. You could tell by the dial tone in those days. Crossbars were legendary! LOUD & meant BUSINESS!
That is what happens when you leave the house.
As late as ten years ago there was STILL an SXS switching system working in the ATT building in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego. Haven't been back there since so for all I know it's still there working.
I did a stint as a line tech apprentice for Telstra in the early 2000s not long after name change and public float. Was hanging out in the Dandenong telephone exchange and had two floor I could access of the old step system shown here. I think there was 4 floors in total. Anyways the system that came after the ESS shown here(can’t remember its name) for in the corner of the bottom floor lol. Was amazing to see. Then the rest of the area was split up to house all the new ADSL equipment being rolled out at the time. Was odd seeing all this 1940s and 50s stuff next to new tech at the time. Also the Panasonic tough books have barely changed on outside in 15 years lol
Trunk lines and carbon blocks and tooth picks for tracing.
Interrupters with dial tone and busy signal pacing.
ATB tone for letting you know
these are a few of my favorite things.
Steven Bennett, remember "60-IPM" and "120-IPM"? 120 was really, really busy, and 60 was busy, but you got closer that time. LOL
@@timothykearns2232 I don't miss wearing the big flight line / shooting range ear protectors to muffle the constant klakety klak of the linefinders. Made my ears sweat like a whore in church.
When they say if I don’t pay, they will cut off my service, I thought it was a metaphor.
In the UK every line was jumpered in parallel on the MDF with dis wedges in one half and make wedges in the other, then on c/o all of the wedges, which were connected by cord were pulled out together by multiple techs, changing over in 2 or 3 seconds. There were weeks of setup time jumpering and the old parallel jumper had to be pulled out after the event. Very quick c/o, no chance of any shorts, but a lot of prep and clean up time.
Let’s have a shout out for the other 1920s technology serving Big Cities...Panel. Cleveland Main and some suburban offices didn’t cutover until 1974. The Cleveland45 office had 45 central office technicians and apparatus techs for 24 hour coverage. This went down to five after all switches were cutover.
look at those fellas cutting cables like it aint no thang
Zoidberg would love this. lol.
Wasn't expecting to see you here... How about an alertek SxS PBX? Lol
+CODMarioWarfare I was thinking more like 5XB. I've seen both 5XB and SxS in person and working before, btw
+NewAgeServerAlarm That's awesome. Was it the New Hampshire museum or something?
+CODMarioWarfare Nope, Ellsworth, ME
+NewAgeServerAlarm I will have to visit that museum next time I head North.
Surprised there's nothing down here near New Haven, what with the whole "first switchboard" thing and SNET being rather unique in the Bell System.
I was 19 and a resident of Glendale. Everyone in town knew this was going to happen and it was the talk of the town for about 3 days. Then time moved forward and it was old news really fast...
Came for the cutting, stayed for the sweetass music!
internet companies when they see your search history 3:03
Lol nah, I just null route or MAC lock your modem. The newest Gpons we have even have a "disable" button for each ONU, and API access. So with about 10 lines of code, the system does it when someone is past 90 days.
It would be fun to physically cut something though. But fixing it would be a pain in the arse.
Allan Tinker You must be fun at parties. 🙄
@@allantinker6838 I like that you actually took the time to reply that, noice
Can I be in the reddit screenshot
@@allantinker6838 thank you for the insight :)
I spent many years in software implementations doing “cutovers” never once imagining it used to actually involve physical cutting!!
An irreversible hard cut. I could feel their nervousness. I wonder how much followup troubleshooting they had to do. I much prefer phased graceful and reversible cut-overs. But, while I know that ESS switches could do that, I have no idea whether step-by-step or cross-bar switches had any such capability.
omg that's what I was thinking... irreversible hard cut, that's playing with fire!
Impressive! Now we know where the term "cutover" comes from!
Is this true? I use the term “cutover” in my job when we cut over networks to new wan circuits. I guess it had to come from somewhere!
And I believe "rats nest" also stemmed from telephony. There are old enclosures that old school techs call Ready Access Terminals (RAT) and the hundreds or even thousands of wires inside are often just a huge mess.
The industry is responsible for most modern inventions, since giant companies like Bell Labs spent so much time and money developing technologies.
Utility locating you see some cables still in use from 1920s. Crazy old stuff here and there.
3:22 guy showed up in his best disco boots for the cut 🕺🏻
The next time I do a cutover from SXS to ESS, I know what music I'll play. Thanks!
The scream at 3:44 was an over-enthusiastic cutter cutting his fingers off
What a time to be alive.
We eliminated the El Segundo office completely ran cables to the new C.O. a-cut the entire city to new cable with banks of transfer switches in several manholes. at midnight the cut went perfectly and thousands of customers were cut to the new equipment in about 4 seconds.
How the he'll did l get here....lol
I'll bet you that old 1984 system sounded 100 times better than the smart phone service crap sound we get today. Before we got rid of our landline about 4 years ago I had an old rotary dial phone in my basement and if I was down there and answered the phone everyone commented on how clear I was.
I worked at NE T&T on ESS #1 back in the 70's It was a nice job . There was two machines 3rd and 7th floor . We also had Panel and I believe #5 crossbar.
3:43 The “All Clear” blood-curdling scream is not to be confused with the “I’m being electrocuted” blood-curdling scream
3:44 Sounded like someone cut something they shouldn't have... 😬
I’m watching this on April 1st, about 90% of the way through the video and I had to make sure this wasn’t uploaded today. I’m so confused.
Coming back 3 years later, that "good enough" is still ao funny to me. Like youre calling to make sure theres no emergencies happening. What on earth did the person on the other end say for the operator to go "good enough" lmao
"I don't know...."
"Good enough"
I would have killed for 5ESS in 1984.
I had to live with E10A (a rare, level 6 French CO) until around 2000. The main computer ran at 125kHz, so it took 3 seconds to establish a connection.
Interesting - so “cutover” really means to cut the wires. I guess the term even stuck today with virtual servers in the cloud.
Haha, kids today 😂🤣🤣
What..no arrestors on the frame? In Australia we would just wrap a cotton rope around all of the arrestors on each vertical. On cue about six guys would yank six ropes each and disconnect about 10k lines from the sxs in about 10 seconds. No scaffolds, no cutters.
That is America, they have to keep jobs on deck for those immigrants.
@@Elfnetdesignsoh, well, how many immigrants were there for this job. None
10k lines ? was that all the lines in australia ,im sorry but this is the usa.we had 10k lines in the 80's for just pizza places in new jersey.
@@sharpe227 Nah Max, in Aystraylya our networks grew up with larger numbers of smaller exchanges. Five 10k exchanges plus another eight satellite 3k's might have covered the same area that one 80k exchange would have done in the USA. Although more efficient in the use of local copper, it also led to us having enormously large and complex junction networks between exchanges in the capital cities, far more complex than in most other countries.
Australia Ericsson AXE-10 country :).
why did they need to physically cut the wires before switching over? I must not understand
My Aunt was present for one of these cutovers and said that the noise difference was incredible when the SXS system was shut down.
My dad was an Central Office manager for Bell Atlantic for 30 years and they cut over to ESS sometime near the end of his career. The constant sound of the old switches has pretty much ruined his hearing. Now that he's in his late 70s and retired, he has lost pretty much all his high-frequency hearing--he can barely hear female or child voices at all, and can't hear any sort of high frequency sounds.
@@stereodreamer23 I believe it. I've been told that many that spent extensive time with that equipment had significant hearing loss. I remember going into the building with my Mom once (whole side of the family worked there) to get to some office she needed to go to and passing by the door to the massive room with the ESS equipment. Even that seemed loud. I can't imagine what it was like full of mechanical stepping switches. Single door off a common stairwell with a combination lock and a huge window. I can't imagine it still being that accessible now.
Those cable cutters have the Jordache look
Thy guy with the radio shouting "Cut the cables!" looks like he's out of Scanners.
"Sweetheart, we have been dating for four years now and so, I have a question to ask you; will you marry me?" Hello, hello, are you there? honey?
His fault for proposing via telephone haha
@@virus2003 And doing so on an emergency line.
A literal cutover. Also I do not miss working on telephone punch blocks or the DMS100.
Ah the good old days when internet was mined with nothing more than an old shovel, a mustache and can do attitude.
Hello...... Is there anybody out there..... It's 2019 and I'm still stuck in the cutting video....
Wait till you get too 2020, whooo boy...
You didn't even have to show me a date for me to know this was the 80's, what a vibe lmao
Very few realize the technology the goes into completing a phone call. These older switches that they're removing here, would take the physical wires from the phone line that you're calling from, and physically connect it to the wires leading to the phone that you were calling, in order to make that phone at the other end ring, and allow the two callers to converse 😉
here's the thing--when an old switch office is converted to run on ESS, the main truck lines coming into the office are put on a splitter, with duplicate lines going to BOTH systems. The way the "cutover" is done is by literally flipping a switch on that splitter, and that switch is controlled by a computer, so it can be done by some IT geek sitting at a keyboard anywhere on the planet--even back in 1984.
The whole "cutover" thing with dozens of guys snipping cables was just "technology theater"--a publicity stunt dreamed up by some marketing wonks at AT&T and Western Electric to make the process of converting service from analog to digital more interesting and dramatic for the public. It was symbolic of "severing ties" with the old tech. It is LITERALLY non-functional publicity stunt. You don't have to cut the cables on the analog system in order for the new digital system to begin functioning. This whole thing is just Public Relations Shenanigans...
For some reason I now have a mustache after this video.
Speedy Cutover Service. Now that's a company you can get behind!
I can't imagine the briefing being too long, until the health and safety man walked in
Soundtrack is bumping!
Why are they LITERALLY cutting the cables? Why not just flip the control switch over to the new system and then demolish the old system after it is no longer in service.
I couldnt find the exact video again, but i remember the gist of something like this:
The old system is mechanical. There is no way to turn off a single control switch as the people back then didnt had it in mind. The only way to turn it off is to kill the main power to everything, which they cant do because they still need to service people (as they are legally contracted to their customers). So they have a part of old still running, and another part which they would cutover.
So they built the new electronic system on top of the old one that they selected. When built, both the old and new can respond to calls. Now it is time to "cutover" to the new system, leaving the old one.
While the control switch has no calls, they need to physically cut the connection by cutting said cables, then turning the new system on. They need to do it as fast as they could as to not inconvenience their customers (they can be sued for it if they take too long)
.
Im sorry if I cant answer much questions and if Im wrong (which im probably am). Im still looking for that video where i got that info.
@@WingMaster562 You've at least made more effort to understand it than most of the smartasses in the comments.
@@WingMaster562 so when they cut the cable, new system will automatically take over? The don't need to rewire it to the new one?
@@dnwklin the new system is already wired in parallel to the old before cutting.
.
After making sure the new system is ready, they would turn it off, then do the cutover, then turn it on. (You can see the guy in the video taking his sweet time turning on the new system with a switch)
.
This ks because the new system might break if short circuits occur. Contrary to what is said in the video, those are not special cutters, but rather they are just regular bolt cutters. You can even see some sparks fly while theyre doing the cutover. In reality, there are no cutters that can cut multiple wires in one go without causing a short circuit.
.
Im still looking for that video. I was hoping that it would show up in my history, but it seems like I wasnt logged in when I viewed that.
@@WingMaster562 I suspect the hot cut is the subscriber lines connected to the line finders. They will have at least 48 volts on them. Shorting it out during the cut is harmless since the phone going off-hook is basically a short anyway, creates a current loop that energizes the line finder. The sharp cutters is so that when the cut is complete the cut-ends do not touch each other and continue to short out a subscriber line. The necessity of the rapid cut is not clear but I suspect the ESS has its own line finders that ought not to be working in parallel with the mechanical line finders.
3:52 I love how there's one switch with a sticky note that says "don't touch" like this is the one big red button that should never be pressed
Murphy's corollary for switches: the switch has no control over when it gets flipped, and some fool is just going to get that irresistible urge to see what it does.
@@TesserId like tourists in an abandoned building, must touch everything
It's strange that TH-cam knows but I think that is interesting
Next up - "The Life of a Telephone Operator in 1969".
Seems like these days AT&T would use 3 people, give them nail clippers, and just have them work at their own pace. That seems to be their schedule for putting in fiber in non-rich neighborhoods and when it comes to fixing an outage, even more so. :)
Still a neat video. My dad used to work as SBS in the 80's and he took me in to work with him a couple of times; once when they were installing a satellite receiver on to roof of a building in Atlanta, and again for... I think it was New Years... ... ANYWHO, got to see one of the switching centers. Was neat... at little more advanced that what's in this video, but still very neat.
Does anyone know what the background music is called? It's jammin'!
Name-dropper by Network Music Ensemble.
The big problem with this is if something goes wrong with the new ESS switch, they can't cut it back???
This brings back memories. I worked on exchange cutovers for Telecom New Zealand back in the 1980's. Cutting over old step by step and cross bar exchanges to new NEC NEAX61 SPC exchanges.
Man even the NEAX brings back memories for me. I only remember two offices in the States that installed them and I was on one turning it up.
Last electromechanical Exchange in NZ was in 2003 I think! Don't know whether it was sxs or crossbar
I still do not understand the purpose of cutting those wires. Were both the older & new wires tied into the same circuit? 🤔
My understanding is that the ESS is powered on but disabled via command terminal until the old Strowger Stepper is ready to have the wires cut.
God I miss the 80’s!!!! I WANNA GO BACK, I HATE IT HERE!!!
You don't miss 80s if you live in Soviet Russia.
@@matyev-hcuabg eh... yeah I bet. Sorry you had a rough 80’s, hope you’re having a good 20’s friend! 😎
From Western Electric’s SXS to Lucent’s 1ESS, and then 5ESS.
I am going to assume the 1ESS handled local exchanges and dial tone and 5ESS were tandem switches. Did I get it right?
And to those still carrying union cards , is the 5ESS around , it are they using smaller boxes as opposed to frames ?
Thx
I wish I was born 30 years earlier and I could've been on that team of technicians.
For like $5 and a powder blue tshirt? They probably grabbed them from a local college for a day.
@@whickervision742 They would've just borrowed engineers from other nearby Central Offices for the night of the hot-cut. One night of shift-diff and/or OT, or just comp time... problem solved.
I was there for that cutover.
@2:05 I wonder what the room would look like today..