Rural Exchange Buildings

[DavePEI]

In the 1970s, Island Tel began the process of upgrading all PEI Rural exchanges from Magneto to dial. This was completed on Nov 30, 1977, when the last rural exchange to be cut over came on line, Tyne Valley. At the time, these were occupied by Northern Telecom SA1/2s, tied into the Charlottetown SP-1. Today, most contain DMS-100 Remote Switching Centers which feed into either the Charlottetown DMS 100.200 combo which replaced the SP-1, or a DMS-100 in Summerside.

The first photo is a late 1970s photo taken shortly after the modernization of the new Wellington switching station, followed by photos taken this morning of the very similar Vernon River and Eldon offices.

[DavePEI]

I have done a fair bit of research over the past week into the equipment used in these buildings since the exchanges first went dial.

Most started out with Northern Electric SA1 CDO crossbar (with a few of exceptions) several had Ericsson ARK523 crossbars), with the eastern offices homing into the Charlottetown SP-1 long distance switching machine , and western stations homing into Summerside.

Summerside office was more recently upgraded to a DMS-100, and Charlottetown to a DMS-100/200 including DDD. Recently, however, the Summerside switch was taken out of service, and it, along with the rest of them homes in on the Charlottetown DMS 100/200 switch using DMS-100 Remote Switching Centres (RSCs).

It now appears like this:

Prince Edward Island Nortel Digital TDM Bell Aliant Layout ...

CHARLOTTETOWN DMS-100/DMS-200 LOCAL/TOLL OFFICE
Remotes that feed Charlottetown ...

CARDIGAN - RSC
COVEHEAD - RSC
ELDON - RSC
GEORGETOWN - RSC
HUNTER RIVER - RSC
MORELL - RSC
MONTAGUE - RSC
MOUNT STEWART - RSC
MURRAY RIVER - RSC
NEW HAVEN - RSC
RUSTICOVILLE - RSC
SOUTH LAKE - RLC***
SOURIS - RSC
VERNON RIVER - RSC
ALBERTON - RSC
BEDEQUE - RSC
BORDEN - RSC
NEW LONDON - RSC
O'LEARY - RSC
SUMMERSIDE - RSC
TYNE VALLEY - RSC
WELLINGTON - RSC

*** SOUTH LAKE unconfirmed at this point.

I have put out feelers for photos of both the original SE1 CDO installations in these offices, and more recently of the DMS-100 RSC installations in them. If I do find some of the actual installations here, I will post them here!