Party in the Ex-Hvt/Vst
The internet lived next to my house in Berlin.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons,Gunnar Klack, Telekom-Main-Distribution-Weserstr-Berlin-Neukoelln-03-2018, CC BY-SA 4.0
There was no sign on the door. I only found out from Moritz Metz in 2015 or 2016 that the internet was at home in this ugly building when we walked past it. Moritz has researched where the Internet lives and travels to desolate places on Germany’s external borders, where the Internet runs to neighboring countries. First of all, he knew where to look:
Screenshot excerpt from a list “Deutsche Telekom AG: DSL-VST locations in Germany”
Secondly, as he explained to me, you can also see it on the rectangular covers with the Telekom logo embedded in the sidewalk. (Described here from memory, a photo follows.)
I haven’t had a landline for 20 years so I don’t remember my old phone number very well, but I think it started with 623, the number that appears in the screenshot between the 30 (area code for Berlin) and the zip code to see is. My neighbors had phone numbers that started the same way as mine.
Wikipedia: “In earlier times, all telephone connections that were switched via a main distributor had partially identical phone numbers. So had e.g. B. all switched connections of the HVt35 a phone number that began with 35. This was due to the electromechanical technology. With the introduction of digital switching technology and the associated possibility of porting a phone number across different connection areas, this fixed connection area assignment based on the phone number was no longer necessary. (Wikipedia: main distributor)
So the building was an exchange and inside it must have been full of cupboards*, from which a cable ran for every connection in the neighborhood, including mine until 2003.
* Please also note the beautiful first sentence of this article: “Calling and surfing are now part of everyday life.”
A few weeks ago I found out from Hanna Engelmeier that the building now contains a club. “But where has the internet gone?” I asked Moritz Metz, and he relayed the answer of his specialist in such questions:
“You don’t need them anymore when the last EWSD or S12 is out.”
This document from 2017 also states: “Deutsche Telekom AG, as the owner of the property, will keep the telecommunications exchange on the property in operation for at least another 10-15 years.” Apparently it went faster than expected.
What used to take a multi-story building to do now happens in roadside boxes. The boxes are called MFG like multi-function housing, they contain Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM). This converts telephone and Internet from fiber optic lines into copper cables for the last stretch to the house connection.
And that’s why space has become available for a club in the former Internet building.
(Kathrin Passig, Moritz Metz)