Visiting the switch

Hello, inquisitive! In Ufa, we visited a tall communications tower , which, as it turned out, is connected into one large network with neighboring turrets. All these facilities sooner or later originate from the switch - the heart of any operator, without which subscribers can only talk live. Objects of similar importance are protected accordingly, however, after watching a couple of spy movies in advance, I learned how to forge fingerprints, pass through lasers, and so on. A small photo report from the site visit.



The premise is called Avtozal, there are two of them at the company's Kazan office.


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The internal areas of the auto-hall are not much different from the usual data centers (I was in a couple, there is something to compare):



The room is fresh as in a frosty winter morning, quite noisy - due to the work of numerous coolers. The cooling is mainly air, so there is nothing particularly interesting under the raised floor. In general, everything is neat and tidy :)



Let's stop in more detail on some pieces of iron. Sorry, if somewhere wrong in the signatures - just do not immediately remember.

Rack cross-country (blocks connected by a special clip wires):



View of the cross-rack from the inside:



3G Switch (MSS):




Switchboard in person, rear view. Connects subscribers, monitors the position of subscribers in the network:



Fixed connection switch. This equipment allows you to connect subscribers on fixed lines of communication (in Tatarstan, this service is provided only to corporate clients):



Facade of the switch cabinet:



2G base station controllers - control base stations, set radio parameters, collect statistical information:



RNC (3G) controller - manages packet traffic, radio parameters:



The general plan with the image of the RNC (Radio Network Controller) 3G controller:



BSC (The Base Station Controller, 2G), TRAU transcoder (equipment for compression and decompression of data, located between the controllers BSC and MSS) and cable-growth (cable storage tray)



View open BSC racks and TRAU transcoder:



Close-up:



RBT (Ring Back Tone) - equipment that ensures the operation of the service “Replace the beep”:



Equipped stand with 3G base station, radio relay line. Radio relay line is used where it is impossible to reach the base station using fiber optic links:



An array of server drives for caching information transmitted by subscribers:



Facade of a telecommunications cabinet with ventilation holes:



Test base station - on it on the go you can test something for health:



Gas Firing Indicator. In the event of a fire, the room is filled with a ridiculous gas (freon?), Which displaces oxygen:



The fire extinguishing system is similar to the one used in the Oversan-Mercury data center, about which I once told . Cylinders that are part of the gas extinguishing system:



That's all. Later, I saw something similar in the data center of the Kazan IT-Park business center - there is a bit more iron there, but I was no longer allowed to shoot them. Here are a couple of photos from a luckier person.

The remaining posts of our "historical" special project :
" Hello, is this an intercom?
» Anatomy of a mast connection
» The history of mail development
» About Morse Code
» The history of the telegraph
» Thanks to radiophysics
» The history of the appearance of the radio
LTE in Kazan. Universiade
» LTE in St. Petersburg
» LTE in Yekaterinburg
» Overview of LTE Devices

! important: The article does not pretend to the completeness and accuracy of all data.