The Telephone Tower in Stockholm circa 1890s | Hacker News Reader

The Telephone Tower in Stockholm circa 1890s

vintag.es

117 pointsRexxar20 comments

What leads to that design? I mean, why are they going to such expense to keep wire separated? Was insulation prohibitive? Had twisted pairs not been invented yet, making crosstalk too severe on closely bundled wires?

I don't believe they are trying to keep every cable separated. I think on the top photo we're looking at bundles of cables -like a nicely done server room, different bundles go to different places hence the arrangement.

Twisted pair was invented shortly after the telephone line, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair#History and the image there: the wires were still separated by distance. At least in Europe, however, many places still used single-wire connections with return through earth for local lines during the first few decades. Not sure about Stockholm. Anyway, I am guessing insulation was too expensive.

That was before high-quality wire insulation was invented. Each subscriber's telephone line had to be physically separate from all the others, because they weren't coated in anything.

http://scienceray.com/technology/information/open-wire-telep...

I guess the great shift were low cost polymers for insulation. In the early 20th century rubber was very expensive, extracted from trees (in a process much like maple syroup extraction I guess).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Latex-production.jpg

Actually before that came paper insulated cable: http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol12-1933/articles/bstj...

These cables had paper pulp insulation around the wires, and a jacket of soft lead around the whole cable. The cable is pressurized with dry air at the central office to drive out water, though flooded lines can still be a problem sometimes.

If you see any dirty-light-grey aerial cable (usually 2-5 cm diameter) in a city, that's probably pulp-insulated lead cable still in service.

So that's how Nokia, the rubber company, started in the telephone cable business!

Anyway, the tower looks awesome, like 19th century science fiction...

Without any real knowledge (this is the Internet, after all), I'm going to go with a combination of uninsulated and no twisted pairs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair#History) plus the rapid expansion of the system precluding any real planning. ("Around 1893, the country leading the world in telephones per 100 persons (teledensity) was Sweden with 0.55 in the whole country but 4 in Stockholm (10,000 out of a total of 27,658 subscribers). This compares with 0.4 in USA for that year.", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_telephone#Early_...)

Nowadays.. not so much better in some places: http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/05/cable-blues-tangled-...

Ah so much cringe!

More cablefails http://www.reddit.com/r/cablefail

Absolutely amazing, and my gut reaction is surprise it lasted so long before inevitably burning up.

Also quite interesting how they integrated it with the city aesthetics of the time, complete with the flags. When viewed from a distance it doesn't look quite as odd as it otherwise might have done had no consideration to that side of things happened.

"...and my gut reaction is surprise it lasted so long before inevitably burning up."

The fire started in the building below it, and didn't have anything to do with the structure itself. By 1953 the tower hadn't been used for its original purpose for many decades, with the wires having been removed in favour of underground cables.

The flags, however, were used for various informational purposes, such as indicating how many medals Sweden had received in international competitions for a particular day.

(My main source is this clip, in Swedish: http://www.svd.se/nyheter/stockholm/mitt-stockholm/7695700_7...)

The picture with the cars must have been much later than 1890's:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gWoq9XFG7Go/UkgDSfJDziI/AAAAAAAAPK...

The tower was still standing until 1953, so this picture must be from the later years of the tower's life.

I'd imagine all but the first two were taken in the later part of it's life as there are not many cables!

Alcatel-Lucent has scanned and put the entire Bell Systems Technical Journal online. There is a lot about research and inventions to try to manage the "outside plant" and how better and better cables were invented.

You can fit all of it on a 16GB SD card for your eBook reader, and you will never be bored again, at least not if you skip some of the calculus :-)

I have a hazy recollection of an NK spinning logo still in Stockholm; is that thr logo on this tower, and is the logo still around?

NK is "Nordiska Kompaniet", a mall in Stockholm that has been around since early 1900s. The logo (also a clock) is quite a famous landmark in Stockholm. The clock/logo was put on the telephone tower in 1939 being the biggest clock in Europe at it's time with a diameter of 7.6 meters and a weight of 7 tons.

It was removed from the telephone tower in the 50's and put on NK's building instead.

This is the clock today: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NK_klocka_2013.jpgv

you put an extra "v" on the link when you were pasting, it should be http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NK_klocka_2013.jpg

Reminds me of visiting Chile.

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