On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 3:50 AM Simon Poole <[email protected]> wrote: > > Wasn't there just a longish discussion about this, and that its origin > goes back to marketing language used by Bell?-
As a former Bell System employee I can tell you we used the term central office to describe buildings that contained a main frame (MDF), a cable (local loop) entrance, a telephone switch and usually some sort of emergency power. It wasn't so much as a marketing term but an engineering term to describe the buildings function. For example other buildings might be a repeater station or main station. Early telephone central office did have windows. Sometime during the 60s and 70s buildings were built without windows, and some even bricked over, especially on the ground level. I left just as the VOIP was being introduced so I'm not sure how many switches still exist. But my sense is there are still many in operation. With the smaller size of equipment, the telephone exchange may still exist, but they now rent out space. There are enough central offices left that I would keep the tag until the buildings are repurposed. I know of one in Seattle that is now an apartment building on the upper floors and a glass blowing studio on the ground level floor. Not sure what the British English equivalent would be to central office. @osm_seattle osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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