|
The magic of telecommunications revealed
Patrick Keller
Lakeside Leader
In 1900, L. Frank Baum published his classic novel “The wonderful world of Oz”.
In the story, the wizard has great powers. To each character, the Wizard appears as someone or something different. In the end, however, the wizard is revealed as a normal man, pulling strings and levers behind a screen.
And, so it is with the magic of telecommunications.
For some, a landline telephone is the height of required technology. For others, cell phones and text messaging are part of everyday life. Nearly everyone today makes use of a computer with a high-speed Internet connection at home or at work.
Telecommunications means different things to different people, so much so that it has become an essential and nearly transparent technology that we use and depend on just like we do electricity or heating fuel. And, like those other essential services, phone service has become something taken for granted; in North America, our Internet connection had better work, and not just work, but work fast! Flaky cell phone connections incur our greatest wrath. No dial tone? Few things are more frustrating (or more expensive) than being cut off from our ability to communicate with others.
Behind all of the phone calls, Internet sessions and text messages, behind every cell phone call there is a mountain of high-tech gadgetry, and behind all of that gear are ordinary people that understand it and make it all work together.
For anyone with an interest in technology, getting a peak inside a Telus communication office is like a trip to the Emerald Kingdom.
There is much magic happening inside of these innocuous concrete buildings; from high speed ADSL Internet feeds to cellular phone switches to fiber optic multiplexers, considered the height of today’s telecom technology. There are thousands of kilometers of cable snaked through the building, connecting rack mount cabinets full of equipment. The maze of wiring enters the building from the basement, or ‘cable vault.’ Along one wall, every phone line in Slave Lake and the surrounding area is hand-wired onto a simple connector, resulting in something like 20,000 pairs of wire. Larger businesses that require more bandwidth have dedicated switches and gear, customized for their needs.
In another corner, two rows of giant 2-volt batteries stabilize and provide power for the DC phone grid. There are a dozen other rows of cool looking gear quietly humming along, providing for our telecommunication needs. It’s all very overwhelming.
“There are 39 of these buildings in the Slave Lake service area alone,” explains Daniel Greenwood, Service Manager for the Whitecourt-Slave Lake area.
The area maintained by Greenwood’s crew covers 45,472 square kilometres, and there are six men that criss-cross the zone, working out of the Slave Lake Communication Office.
“One day, we might have to drive to Wabasca to do an install, another day might include repairing equipment on a 300 foot tower,” explains Greenwood.
Each morning, the crew gathers at the office to receive work orders. Some have to run across town, others will drive to Smith or Red Earth Creek.
On this day, we followed long-time Telus employee Kim Spencer on his rounds.
Spencer is as comfortable pulling wire from the giant bank of connections in the server room as he is testing lines in one of the many green metal boxes around town. He’s been at it for over 20 years.
“We sometimes get anxious callers,” said Spencer. “It’s hard to explain why it might take two weeks to respond to a call, in say, Red Earth Creek, but there are just six of us on the road at any time.”
Winter is the most demanding, Spencer says; extreme temperatures wreak havoc on equipment, ice damages lines, snow is ploughed over the green boxes that might hold 500 or more phone lines. It’s a never-ending battle.
“If a plough truck buries one of these boxes, it can mean no access to maybe 800 customers’ lines. If a kid gets into one of these and pulls a handful of wires out, it can be a days work just getting service back.”
The six man crew work with buried and aerial cable, microwave towers, mobility, radio, data and they do installations and repair for both business and residential service.
One day, they might be fixing a phone line to your home, the next day, they might be banging ice off of a tower on top of a mountain.
And, beyond damage control and repair, the six guys have a full work load just keeping up with new developments in the field.
Kinuso residents, who have for years lived with spotty cell service and no high speed Internet will soon be brought up to date with a a new 350’ tower. Folks in the Wabasca area will soon benefit from a similar arrangement.
Some of these same six guys will be out in the field, doing to the dirty work, erecting the towers that will bring highspeed data and cell service to the small villages.
Telus crews often work literally in the trenches, where road work or new development have them waist deep in a hole, splicing together wires.
It turns out that there is no wizard behind the dial tone, just six guys with a grasp on one of 20,000 pairs of wires.
There may not be any wizard, but there is no shortage of magic in telecommunications.
Copyright © 2000 The Lakeside Leader. All Rights Reserved.
No part may be reproduced without written permission.
View our Privacy Statement.
Send website suggestions to the Webmaster
|
