On 11/4/2024 2:59 PM, Ethan O'Toole via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I don't think they use that much power, I seem to recall telcos run them on batteries or something.
Quite the opposite, electronic switches use far more power than the old electromechanical switches did, or the newer packet switch replacements for them. This article is a bit dated (it has pictures of a 1AESS), but it includes some pictures of part of a CO battery plant at the bottom: https://www.montagar.com/~patj/phone-switches.htm There are a few phone collectors in recent years who have acquired 5ESS and DMS family (SL-100) hardware that I know of. It certainly is becoming a dream of many. The main challenge seems to be scaling them down. I know of one who got an SL-100 and even after consolidating it down to operate with as little equipment as possible, idled at around 3,000 watts if I remember right. It's in his garage and he only runs it when it's actively being used, due to the impact on the power bill. Not without its challenges, given it takes 30-60 minutes to boot up and load the firmware. There's some documentation I've read regarding power studies that Western Electric or AT&T did maybe 20-30 years ago and the switches and associated equipment consumed hundreds of thousands of watts in the analyses they did. Then again, they were serving almost 100,000 phone lines out of that office.