AT&T Southern Bell Telephone Company Building

51 Peachtree Center Ave NE

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The Southern Bell Telephone Company Building, now known as the AT&T Communications Building, is the main telephone exchange for downtown Atlanta, Georgia. It is located at 51 Peachtree Center Avenue, on the northeast corner of Auburn Avenue.

It was designed for Southern Bell by Marye, Alger and Vinour, in an austere art deco style. Originally planned to be 25 stories in height, which would have made it the tallest building in Atlanta, it was completed in 1929 at six stories. Additions in 1947, 1948 and 1963 brought it to its present 14 stories. Source: Wikipedia

Intercept NSA Article

Source: Intercept’s NSA Article

The AT&T building in Atlanta was originally constructed in the 1920s as the main telephone exchange for the city’s downtown area. The art deco structure, made of limestone, was designed to be the largest in the city at the time at 25 stories tall. However, due to the Great Depression, plans were scaled back and at first, it only had six stories. Between 1947 and 1963, the building was upgraded to host 14 stories, and a large brown microwave tower – visible for miles – was also added. A profile of the building on the History Atlanta website notes that it contains “operations, phone exchanges and other communications equipment for AT&T.”

NSA and AT&T maps point to the Atlanta facility as being one of eight “peering” hubs that process internet traffic as part of the NSA surveillance program code-named FAIRVIEW. One former AT&T employee – who spoke on condition of anonymity – confirmed that the site was one of eight primary AT&T “Service Node Routing Complexes,” or SNRCs, in the U.S. NSA documents explicitly describe tapping into flows of data at all eight of these sites.

Information provided by a second former AT&T employee adds to the evidence linking the Atlanta building to NSA surveillance. Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, alleged in 2006 that the company had allowed the NSA to install surveillance equipment in some of its network hubs. An AT&T facility in Atlanta was one of the spy sites, according to documents Klein presented in a court case over the alleged spying. The Atlanta facility was equipped with “splitter” equipment, which was used to make copies of internet traffic as AT&T’s networks processed it. The copied data would then be diverted to “SG3” equipment – a reference to “Study Group 3” – which was a code name AT&T used for activities related to NSA surveillance, according to evidence in the Klein case.

The Atlanta facility is likely of strategic importance for the NSA. The site is the closest major AT&T internet routing center to Miami, according to the NSA and AT&T maps. From undersea cables that come aground at Miami, huge flows of data pass between the U.S. and South America. It is probable that much of that data is routed through the Atlanta facility as it is being sent to and from the U.S. In recent years, the NSA has extensively targeted several Latin American countries – such as Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela – for surveillance.

Map and Nearby Locations:

51 Peachtree Center Ave NE
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Sites within 15 miles of AT&T Southern Bell Telephone Company Building

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0.23 miles 180 Peachtree
0.24 miles QuadraNet Atlanta
Quadranet's Atlanta facility s located downtown and within walking distance of 56 carrier hotel.
0.24 miles Level3 Atlanta (180 Peachtree)
0.24 miles Equinix Atlanta AT1
Equinix's AT1 site is a 6-story reinforced steel and concrete with brick face building.
0.31 miles Cogent: 55 Marietta
0.31 miles American Tower: 55 Marietta (Cyber Wurx)
This site was acquired by American Tower in 2021 from Cyber Wurx
0.31 miles ATLDC 55 Marietta
0.31 miles Colo Atl-55 Marietta
Colo Atl has no monthly recurring cross connect fees between tenants and provides exceptional customer service.
0.31 miles American Tower: 55 Marrietta
0.32 miles 55 Marietta
It is easy to confuse the 2 at first glance, 55 Marietta (which is across the street) from its more famous neighbor, 56 Marietta
0.33 miles FOGO Atlanta
Small site with in the 56 carrier hotel.
0.33 miles ColoCrossing GA1
10,000sqft data center with in Atlanta's telecom hotel
0.33 miles Equinix Atlanta AT2 AT3
Equinix AT2 and AT3 are located in the 56 Marietta carrier hotel.
0.33 miles Level3 Atlanta
0.33 miles 56 Marietta Carrier Hotel - Digital Realty
56 Marietta is a Carrier Hotel and one of the most popular buildings in the Atlanta data center market.
0.34 miles Level3 Atlanta (345 Courtland)
0.37 miles Peer 1 Atlanta
0.43 miles Southern Telecom Atlanta
0.50 miles Level3 Atlanta (275 Decatur)
0.51 miles 250 Williams (AT2) Digital Realty
Digital Realty's data center at 250 Williams Street located in the American Cancer Society Center in downtown Atlanta.
0.51 miles Evocative ATL1
Built in 2000 and was subsequently expanded in 2012
0.51 miles Level3 Atlanta (250 Williams)
0.66 miles H5 Atlanta
The H5 Atlanta colocation facility features direct access to the key Southeastern metro and long haul network providers and is the site of Level (3)'s Atlanta Gateway.
1.36 miles DataBank Atlanta ATL1
The DataBank site is part of the CODA development, a 645,000 sqft mixed-use office complex, currently under construction in Georgia Tech’s Technology Square.
1.55 miles Level3 Atlanta (874 Dekalb)
2.40 miles QTS Atlanta DC2
2.54 miles Internap Atlanta ACS003
Internap's facility at 1033 Jefferson is located within QTS's massive Atlanta Metro data center.
2.54 miles QTS Atlanta Metro
A massive 970,000 sqft data center is one of the largest in the world.
2.68 miles Level3 Atlanta (953 Donnelly)
2.70 miles EdgeConneX ATL01
2.70 miles EdgeConneX Atlanta Campus
The Atlanta EdgeConneX site has attracted MSOs (Charter, Comcast) and content companies (Netflix and Twitch) into their data center.
2.73 miles DataBank Atlanta ATL3
2.74 miles EdgeConneX ATL02
2.76 miles DataBank Atlanta ATL2
5.20 miles Edged Energy: Atlanta 2
5.20 miles Edged Energy: Atlanta
5.88 miles DC BLOX Atlanta
Brookhaven area, DC BLOX’s Atlanta data center is 20 miles from the ATL airport
7.03 miles 760 Doug Davis - Digital Realty
The building is fully leased to a major US based airline
8.43 miles XO: 4000 Highland
8.52 miles American Tower: SW Atlanta
9.83 miles 365 Smyrna, GA
The facility was formerly operated by Sungard and known as ATL-5600
10.32 miles Coloblox
Local provider located in North Atlanta at the junction of I-285 and I-75
10.41 miles Equinix Atlanta AT4
Equinix acquired AT4 from Verizon in May 2017
10.80 miles Microsoft East Point
10.83 miles CleanSpark: College Station
CleanSpark’s first ever Bitcoin mining facility is in College Park, Georgia. It sits on six acres near the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
11.17 miles 101 Aquila - Digital Realty
Digital Realty has fully leased the building to a triple net client. The client is likely Google.
11.26 miles Cyxtera Atlanta AT1
Located in Lithia Springs, GA, the AT1 data center resides in a single-story, purpose-built building and less than a mile from Google's data center.
11.26 miles Evoque ATL1
Evoque data center located near the Google data center in Lithia Springs
11.26 miles 375 Riverside - Digital Realty
The facility was built in 1998, renovated in 2008, and offers 32 MW of power. It is occupied by three large tenants from the managed services (Cyxtera), telecommunications (AT&T) and healthcare services industries (Cigna Health Insurance.)
11.40 miles Google Douglas County Georgia
Google announced in 2018 that it will acquire 78.8 MW of solar power to run the data center.
11.46 miles Capital Internet Atlanta
Small local provider in Sandy Springs
11.58 miles Switch Atlanta: The KEEP
12.14 miles PwC Lithia Springs
12.28 miles Internap Atlanta: 40 Perimeter Center
The facility is located within Lincoln Rackhouse's facility
12.28 miles 40 Perimeter Center: Lincoln Rackhouse
The data center is 30 minutes from Hartsfield International Airport and 20 minutes from downtown Atlanta.
12.61 miles T5@Atlanta Campus
12.74 miles Vantage: Douglasville, Atlanta, GA
Vantage Data Centers is planning a 1.7M SF data center complex on Riverside Parkway in Douglasville, Atlanta.
12.84 miles Rock House Road data center, Atlanta
The Rock House Road Data Center Site project is located at 1971 Rock House Road in Douglas County’s Lithia Springs would span 1.465 million sq ft (136,100 sqm) across four buildings and an on-site substation.
12.94 miles DataSite Atlanta
Freestanding Building on Approximately 7 Acres that is outside the 500 year flood plain
13.20 miles DC BLOX Douglasville
The two-story data center campus will feature twelve data halls, totaling 750,000 square feet of gross space on 55 acres.
13.32 miles Flexential Douglasville
13.35 miles CoreWeave: Atlanta-Douglasville, GA
CoreWeave will expand its data center footprint into two new co-location facilities in Hillsboro, Oregon and Douglasville, GA, both of which are owned and operated by Flexential.
13.57 miles Level3 Atlanta (Doraville)
13.76 miles Microsoft Douglasville
15.58 miles Equinix Atlanta AT5
Another site Equinix acquired from Verizon.
16.53 miles CleanSpark: Norcross
An 87,000-square-foot data center in Norcross was purchased and transformed into CleanSpark’s second Bitcoin mining facility
17.44 miles Mapletree: 2775 Northwoods
17.44 miles Flexential Atlanta-Norcross
The Norcross data center features a cloud node on-site
19.75 miles Strategic Real Estate Partners, Conyers, GA
Strategic Real Estate Partners plans to build a three-building data center campus in Conyers, a suburb about 20 miles southeast of Atlanta. The site will feature 837,500 sq ft (77,806 sqm) of data center space across three buildings.
19.98 miles DC BLOX: Rockdale, GA
DC BLOX is offering a hyperscale-ready data center campus in Rockdale County, Georgia. The campus will feature 750,000 square feet (69,675 sqm) of space with 216MW of total power committed by Georgia Power.
20.00 miles Project Rita: Tyrone, GA (Proposed)
A new data center campus is being planned in Fayette County, Georgia. The site would be home to ‘Project Rita’, a proposed development of two one-story data center buildings totaling 490,000 square feet (45,520 sqm), and an on-site substation. The campus would total 96MW.

AT&T Southern Bell Telephone Company Building Data Center Photos

Map produced by TAG, the Technology Association of Georgia.
Map of Georgia's Data Centers
Posted in Atlanta

Map produced by TAG, the Technology Association of Georgia.

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