Bute St. - NRFLVABS Updated: 09:46AM EST 05/07/2004 Operating Company: Verizon Virginia, Inc. Former Operating Company: Bell Atlantic - Virginia, Inc. C&P Telephone Co. of VA Operating Company Number: 9213 Office Name: Norfolk 1 (AT&T) / Bute St. (Bell) Location: 120/136 Bute St. Norfolk, VA Colocated Carrier(s): Level3 Communications, L.L.C. - VA (8825) Sprint Communications Co., L.P. - VA (8745) Omnipoint Communications CAP Operations, L.L.C. (6855) Weblink Wireless, Inc. (6385) Nextel Communications (6232) KMC Telecom Cavalier Telephone?

Comments:
For years AT&T side was empty as it seemed asbestos was being torn out. Although, the buildings are joined I am told there is only one door on one floor that actually allows access between the two. Nextel supposedly has their Norfolk switch colocated here. Bute Street is also a KMC Telecom and AT&T POP. Not show in the switch table are some Weblink Wireless (PageMart) exchanges which are actually handled by the Bell Atlantic switch. Public regulatory notices seem to indicate that the original tandem, NRFLVABS52T, has been replaced by NRFLVABSGT0, a Voice Telephony over ATM tandem. This cut over seemed to happen around the beginning of April, 2004.

Bute Street is also considered (but not 100% confirmed) one of AT&T's 145 Western Electric (now Lucent) 4ESS long distance switch sites. In the past the AT&T side has acted as a GEP site and is supposedly hardended against a nuclear blast as close as two miles.

Omnipoint is the original name of VoiceStream who was bought out by Deutsche Telecom and renamed to T-Mobile. Service was first launched around mid to late 2003 and there is no area MSC. Like exchange for Roanoke, Staunton, Richmond and elsewhere in the new services areas it is thought everything is backhauled to the nearest MSC outside of Washington, D.C. in Beltsville, MD.

Finally, not really sure what has happened to Sprint's NRFLVABSXTX or the exchanges it handled. The entry has been left here for completeness.