Tag Archives: Internet Backbone

A house that isn’t a house.

Cable landing stations come in various forms. Mainly industrial buildings but here is one on a housing estate hidden inside two houses. The inner walls and floors have been removed to house the fibre terminating equipment. The four large air con units outside give it away. The garage houses the backup generator.

Proposed Equipment Building Plan

Proposed Equipment Building Plan

Data Centers in Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes has a number of Data Centres. The Linford Wood area seems to have a particular concentration of data processing companies, data centres, fibre cables and data connectivity providers.

My Mapped Data Centers ( work in progress )

MK Data Vault Survey Document

MK Data Vault Glossy

The Secrets of Cornwall by Mark Thomas.

This video fuelled my interest in a more detailed search for the hidden buildings and ducts that make up the Internet Backbone of the UK.

Watched this video several hundred times pausing and following Mark’s journey mapping the sites he visited. Also used a number of sources like Secret Bases and Internet Maps to map other interesting sites. Some sites were found by endlessly and painfully zooming and scrolling Google Maps !

I have made up several KML files locating each these sites and the route of the GTN and other fibre cables.

My Mapped Points Of The Internet Backbone ( work in progress )

My Mapped Points of The National Grid ( work in progress )

Fibre Repeater Sites

Collected from a number of sources like Secret Bases and Internet Maps and some were painfully located on Google Maps by endlessly zooming and scrolling !

SMBT Fenny Stratford Exchange / Bletchley (MK) – bRAS

Took a trip out to investigate our local bRAS building.

BT Wholesale has ten 20/21CN bRAS which are located at Birmingham, Bletchley (MK), Ealing, Edinburgh, Ilford, Kingston, Manchester, Reading, Sheffield, Faraday. If your ISP uses BT Wholesale for routing then you can be sure that all your traffic will have passed through one of the above bRAS locations.

There are a large number of network companies present at this site as indicated by the network chamber covers outside in the street.

My Mapped BT Exchanges ( work in progress )

My Mapped Eire Telecom Exchanges ( work in progress )

Submarine Cables & Landing Stations

The physical connectivity of the Internet is of great fascination to me. From Submarine Cables and Cable Landing Stations to fibre ducts running up and down the country between Exchanges and POPs.