Hi Ethan, No contacts here (yet) but I share your aspiration to rescue something from the 5ESS family. Most of the local CO's in my area are running optical remotes, so getting a complete switch may not be realistic but even just a single cabinet would be awesome. If I make any useful connections I will keep you posted. Thanks!
Awesome! Will share notes here as well! I reached out to the Verizon giving thing. A guy I know that works at Verizon in a support role says that as far as he knows they won't replace the 5ESS stuff they will run it till death. This is different from what I saw on redit, so... Still worth hunting in advance. - Ethan
-----Original Message----- From: vcf-midatlantic [mailto:vcf-midatlantic-bounces@lists.vcfed.org] On Behalf Of Ethan O'Toole via vcf-midatlantic Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2024 12:28 PM To: vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org Cc: Ethan O'Toole <telmnstr@757.org> Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Verizon contacts, Lucent 5ESS-2000 VCDX?
Not to change the subject, but I've heard that Verizon is retiring all of their 5ESS hardware.
Anyone have any contacts at Verizon regarding surplus equipment / scrap?
I think it would be cool to try to build a running 5ESS VCDX system with a minimum amount of POTS circuits (64?) and trunks and all that. Compact -48v DC power supplies, Sun 1u for the emulator thing... A home sized build that can be connected to shadytel or one of the online hobbyist phone networks.
Also, I don't really know that much about them. I've been reading some of the manuals that Nokia (who bought Alcatel who bought Lucent who was AT&T or whatever) has online. The facebook Class 5 group -- someone said the switch mdoule itself will take nearly a full rack, so that is interesting. Wikipedia said 3 racks. The place I worked that I think had one, it was 11 or 12racks but I never saw inside them -- no one seemed to know anything about it.
Any leads appreciated.
- Ethan