Mondial House: Thames ISC
Thames ISC
The Thames International Switching Centre (ISC) was installed in two stages which were officially known as:

Phase 1-Thames A
Phase 2-Thames B

Peter Walker quotes "We always called them (Thames) 1 and 2 - I think the folks who did the 'official' designations said that you couldn't use numbers!"


Scan: Thames ISC - a page from the BTI brochure (1984) which shows a block diagram of the switching configurations.
| EXIT | Switch Tour | Next |
| Thames ISC | A - Phase 1 | B -Phase 2 | Acknowledgements |

Thames ISC

Thames
ISC
Thames ISC was located on the second floor of Mondial, with Thames B extension on part of the first.

Thames A (Phase 1)
Thames A, TXK5
Thames 1 TXK 5 came into service at Mondial House in 1978. Again, two separate incoming and outgoing units, but both had links to the TXK 6 Thames 2 exchange. Each unit had around 2500e capacity.




Photo: Thames A, TXK 5 © LSA 2001.
   
Thames A - Frame
"This is the frame where we jumpered the circuits coming up from the repeater station. The relays behind the frame (on the left) were part of the main routing control."

Note the change in this era from the long brown dust coats to the short blue jackets.


Photo: Thames A © Adrian Hughes circa 1980.
Thames A - Control Room
 "This is the control room where we were all meant to sit unless there was a fault, part of the Ericsson ethos! Steve 'Ted' Foxley is the ginger haired guy on the right."



Photo: Thames A © Adrian Hughes circa 1980.
Thames A - Diagrams Room
In the 1980s, circuit and wiring diagrams were still drawn on large sheets of paper. 




Photo: Thames A © Adrian Hughes circa 1980.
   
Thames B (Phase 2)

Thames 2 TXK 6 used the Ericsson AKE13 SPC controlled codebar switching system. SPC was necessary to support the CCITT6 common channel signalling system. It had a capacity of 5000e. The last analogue ISC to survive – it was withdrawn in 1992.


Chris King writes

"I was trained on the Thames B switch (20 weeks of training) an Ericsson TXK 6, it had 6 processors! BTI always had the biggest exchanges anywhere in the world."

Official Photos

Inspecting an AKE switch...

Pat Hastings, John Maurer and Peter Benton.
Pat Hastings, John Maurer and Peter Benton. 




Photo: Post Office Telecoms.
Inspecting an AKE Switch
John Maurer (IMTR); Peter Benton MD, Post Office Telecoms; Pat Hastings, Executive Engineer; Jack Smith, Head of Group.




Photo: Post Office Telecoms.
John Maurer, Peter Benton and Pat Hastings.
John Maurer, Peter Benton and Pat Hastings. 




Photo: Post Office Telecoms.
Acknowledgements

With thanks to Peter Walker and John Burt.

Peter Walker was the project manager for Thames (extension) and Keybridge in 1981/2.

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