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Comment by wrigby | Hacker News Reader

Having worked in the telco world for a bit, I wouldn't say that your description is unusual for a remote site. Generator backup is typical, and a switching office usually isn't manned, so it makes sense that they would arrange for packages to be delivered next door. Window tinting sounds nefarious, but truly could be done just to reduce HVAC load from solar heat. It's also nice to not advertise the pair of $100k+ Cisco or Juniper big iron routers that could be in there.

The amount of equipment that makes up most telco networks is actually pretty incredible. There are tons of small, unmanned sites that house switches, routers, and fiber amplifiers.

That said, I don't doubt that there are tons of sites that look just like this and actually do have something to hide.

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Quick question for you: I've noticed that in most cities there's at least one nondescript, windowless brick building with 70's era architecture and some connection to a telephone company. Examples: [1] [2] [3] Now, those were probably made back in the days when everything was built from mechanical switches, or at best, transistors. What do they do with all that space when modern, miniaturized tech comes to town? Are they just filled with cobwebs and bits of ancient mainframe computers nowadays?

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6767102,-122.2095201,3a,75y,...

[2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Museum+of+Communications/@...

[3] https://www.google.com/maps/place/AT%26T+Long+Lines+Building...

I truly have no clue. My direct experience is in network operations in the satellite communications industry, which tangentially exposed me to more traditional telcos. I couldn't speak with authority on what those buildings do nowadays.

Often, replaced with fiber patch bays, DSLAMs, etc. Then you have the same gear duplicated for CLECs that have colocation. At one point AT&T was claiming that COs were full/that there was no more space for CLEC colocation.

In larger cities some were repurposed as MSCs for cell service.

- Some of that space is now filled with networking gear, since phone companies are ISPs via DSL, FiOS, etc. Since this implies a lot of internet bandwidth coming into the building, they might also lease some of the space and network capacity to other companies who co-locate their own servers and networking gear there.

- The backhaul equipment that connects cellular networks to the landline phone/internet networks may also be in those buildings. (Some big carriers, e.g., Verizon, provide both landline and cellular services.)

- Some of that space is taken up by backup power supplies (batteries and/or generators) to keep the system going during power outages.

- Some of the space may be used for storage of supplies used for maintaining the local phone network.

What you're describing is the ILEC CO.

That's what I figure, I just thought I'd bring it up in context of the description of the room in the linked article. It sounds just the same, so it's really difficult to determine what is a bad place and what is a normal place. Again, that's likely by design.

> That said, I don't doubt that there are tons of sites that look just like this and actually do have something to hide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

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