Central Office Locations

While browsing TekSavvy's DSLReports forum, I found a post that mentioned telcodata.us, a site which locates the Central Office for a given area code and exchange prefix. For example, my line connects to this CO, and the address appears in the detailed switch info link. You even get a map, although the one shown in that link is wrong. It looks like they are using the lat/long data which is incorrect for that address. If you search Google Maps for the address, the location is shown near Midland and Finch, which matches what I already knew. I've always wanted a way to get this information and once again the saying "You can find anything on the Internet" is proven correct. :) But, why would I want to know the locations of the COs?

I'm still hunting for an apartment and one of my requirements is reasonable DSL speed. DSL speed is dependent on the distance from the CO. So, if you can estimate the distance, you can get an idea of the speed that might be achieved from that apartment. This is by no means accurate since telephone lines are usually laid along the cheapest route, which may not be the shortest, but it is better than nothing.

Even so, the usefulness of the idea has other limits. For one, the apartment must be in the same building has the phone number in the ad, so basement apartments in single family houses are a good bet. But even then, sometimes the advert gives a cell number, or the owner might not occupy the same house, which is revealed when the CO for the number is on the other side of the city!

The real benefit is that it will open up areas of the city that I hadn't considered before because I was too uncertain which CO serviced the area. Having more information is never a bad thing.

Apartment Hunting

For various reasons, I'm not happy in my current apartment so I've been hunting for a while now. The vacancy situation in Toronto has always been bad but the recession has made the problem much worse. People who are currently renting, are less inclined to purchase a home when they have to worry about losing their jobs.

Since I work from home, my requirements create addition problems. I need more space than is usual for a single person which puts me in competition with couples and families, who will get preferential treatment. I need a reasonable amount of peace and quiet so I need to be careful about who my neighbours might be. That practically eliminates multi-unit buildings which are the most common type of apartment building. I need good ADSL speeds which limits the locations by distance from the Central Offices. That last one is very difficult since only my ISP can make any reasonable estimate for speed.

Many vacancies do not get advertised so I need to get the word out and hope I get lucky. I'm also looking at other options but I'll leave that for another post.