I wonder how many operating 5ESS are left now.

a fairly large number - a bigger question is what happens to all the CO buildings once all the copper is turned down.

There is a huge opportunity about 5 years from now for edge datacenters. You have these buildings which have highly reliable power and connectivity, all thats needed is servers which can live in a NEBS environment.

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kayfox 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

COs are already being used for edge datacenters, its just not been talked about much outside the industry.

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bluedino 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Most of those CO's are in buildings that don't have all that much space in them, were built in the 40's and 50's, and likely aren't suitable for that kind of thing. Cooling would be a big deal.

	▲	Aloha 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I have been in ~15 CO's - there is tons of floor space in them, and the only thing telephone switching equipment has done since the 50's is shrink - beyond that, most existing CO buildings had expansions when electronic switching came about, because they couldnt add the new electronic (1/1A/5 ESS) without additional floor space. Cooling is noted by the requirement for NEBS compliant equipment.