I've been in a bunch of CO's over my 13 years as a contractor, and I'm always intrigued at the equipment inside of them. I'd imagine much of it has been abandoned in place, or is nearly obsolete but is still serving a purpose.
One thing that I've wondered about for as long time is why some offices have a row of 5-10 identical phones on the wall? I'm assuming they were to test local and long distance trunks between offices, but I'd love to know the specific situations and what's involved.
These details may have been largely forgotten as people retire or pass on, especially if they were a holdover from the mechanical switching era.
If anyone has some insights, feel free to chime in. Thanks!
Typically these were set up as a test board for party lines, 4 & 8 party. I added a picture, phones have long since been removed.
Most , if not all CO's had these. They were primarily used for making test calls, from various types of service, after a major switch software update, something that used to be a full evening, and into the night, undertaking. It's been years since a DMS or GTD-5 upgrade to a new software load, only the occational patch, so test phones don't see much, if any, use these days.