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Number One Crossbar Switching System
The Number One Crossbar Switching System (1XB), was the primary technology for urban telephone exchanges served by the Bell System in the mid-20th century. Its switch fabric used the electromechanical crossbar switch to implement the topology of the panel switching system of the 1920s. The first No. 1 Crossbar was installed in the PResident-2 central office at Troy Avenue in Brooklyn, New York which became operational in February 1938. Evolution The predecessor to the No. 1 Crossbar was the panel system, which was used in many large metropolitan areas beginning in the early 1920s. By the 1930s, there was a growing need for a new type of switching machine that did not have the drawbacks inherent in the panel system. Desirable features of the crossbar system included: * Elimination of the motor-driven equipment * Reduction in the number of unique parts * Reduction in the cost of maintenance * Bifurcated, precious metal relay contacts, resulting in improved contact performance a ...
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Telephone Exchange
A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital systems to establish telephone calls between subscribers. In historical perspective, telecommunication terms have been used with different semantics over time. The term ''telephone exchange'' is often used synonymously with ''central office'', a Bell System term. Often, a ''central office'' is defined as a building used to house the inside plant equipment of potentially several telephone exchanges, each serving a certain geographical area. Such an area has also been referred to as the exchange or exchange area. In North America, a central office location may also be identified as a ''wire center'', designating a facility to which a telephone is connected and obtains dial tone. For business and billing purposes, telecommunication carriers defi ...
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Outside Plant
In telecommunication, the term outside plant has the following meanings: *In civilian telecommunications, outside plant refers to all of the physical cabling and supporting infrastructure (such as conduit, cabinets, tower or poles), and any associated hardware (such as repeaters) located between a demarcation point in a switching facility and a demarcation point in another switching center or customer premises. *In the United States, the DOD defines outside plant as the communications equipment located between a main distribution frame (MDF) and a user end instrument. The CATV industry divides its fixed assets between head end or inside plant, and outside plant. The electrical power industry also uses the term outside plant to refer to electric power distribution systems. Context Network connections between devices such as computers, printers, and phones require a physical infrastructure to carry and process signals. Typically, this infrastructure will consist of: * Cabl ...
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Director Telephone System
The director telephone system was a development of the Strowger or step-by-step (SXS) switching system used in London and five other large cities in the UK from the 1920s to the 1980s. A large proportion (c. 70% to 80%) of telephone traffic in large metropolitan areas is outgoing traffic, and it is distributed over many exchanges. A non-director SXS exchange system is not suitable for these areas. As the translation facility incorporated was similar to the register in common control systems, the director system incorporates two features of the Panel system, which was introduced in large American cities, and which were required regardless of the type of exchange system for these large areas, which would have a mixture of manual and automatic exchanges for some years. Customer stations were assigned seven-digit numbers, with the first three digits spelling out the local exchange name; this expedited call handling particularly to and from manual exchanges. Direct or tandem junctio ...
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Stored Program Control
Stored program control (SPC) is a telecommunications technology for telephone exchanges. Its characteristic is that the switching system is controlled by a computer program stored in a memory in the switching system. SPC was the enabling technology of electronic switching systems (ESS) developed in the Bell System in the 1950s, and may be considered the third generation of switching technology. Stored program control was invented in 1954 by Bell Labs scientist Erna Schneider Hoover, who reasoned that computer software could control the connection of telephone calls. History Proposed and developed in the 1950s, SPC was introduced in production electronic switching systems in the 1960s. The 101ESS private branch exchange (PBX) was a transitional switching system in the Bell System to provide expanded services to business customers that were otherwise still served by an electromechanical central office switch. The first central office switch with SPC was installed at Morris, Ill ...
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1ESS Switch
The Number One Electronic Switching System (1ESS) was the first large-scale stored program control (SPC) telephone exchange or electronic switching system in the Bell System. It was manufactured by Western Electric and first placed into service in Succasunna, New Jersey, in May 1965. The switching fabric was composed of a reed relay matrix controlled by wire spring relays which in turn were controlled by a central processing unit (CPU). The 1AESS central office switch was a plug compatible, higher capacity upgrade from 1ESS with a faster 1A processor that incorporated the existing instruction set for programming compatibility, and used smaller remreed switches, fewer relays, and featured disk storage. It was in service from 1976 to 2017. Switching fabric The voice switching fabric plan was similar to that of the earlier 5XB switch in being bidirectional and in using the call-back principle. The largest full-access matrix switches (the 12A line grids had partial access) in ...
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Number Five Crossbar Switching System
The Number Five Crossbar Switching System (5XB switch) is a telephone switch for telephone exchanges designed by Bell Labs and manufactured by Western Electric starting in 1947. It was used in the Bell System principally as a Class 5 telephone switch in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) until the early 1990s, when it was replaced with electronic switching systems. Variants were used as combined Class 4 and Class 5 systems in rural areas, and as a TWX switch. 5XB was originally intended to bring the benefits of crossbar switching to towns and small cities with only a few thousand telephone lines. The typical starting size was 3000 to 5000 lines, but the system had essentially unlimited growth capacity. The earlier 1XB urban crossbar was impractically expensive in small installations, and had difficulties handling large trunk groups. 5XB was converted to wire spring relays in the 1950s and otherwise upgraded in the 1960s to serve exchanges with tens of thousands of ...
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4ESS Switch
The No. 4 Electronic Switching System (4ESS) is a class 4 telephone electronic switching system that was the first digital electronic toll switch introduced by Western Electric for long-distance switching. It was introduced in Chicago in January 1976, to replace the 4A crossbar switch. The last of the 145 systems in the AT&T network was installed in 1999 in Atlanta. Approximately half of the switches were manufactured in Lisle, Illinois, and the other half in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. At the time of the Bell System divestiture, most of the 4ESS switches became assets of AT&T as part of the long-distance network, while others remained in the RBOC networks. Over 140 4ESS switches remained in service in the United States in 2007. System architecture The 4ESS Switch is often considered as a switching network and its controlling processor. The major functional equipment areas include: * 1B processor, the 4ESS primary controlling processor * 3B computer and associated attached proc ...
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Multi-frequency Signaling
In telephony, multi-frequency signaling (MF) is a type of signaling that was introduced by the Bell System after World War II. It uses a combination of audible tones for address (telephone number) transport and supervision signaling on trunk lines between central offices. The signaling is sent ''in-band'' over the same channel as the bearer channel used for voice traffic. Multi-frequency signaling defines electronic signals that consist of a combination of two audible frequencies, usually selected from a set of six frequencies. Over several decades, various types of MF signaling were developed, including national and international varieties. The CCITT standardization process specified the American Bell System version as ''Regional Standard No. 1'', or Signalling System R1, and a corresponding European standard as Signalling System R2. Both were largely replaced by digital systems, such as Signalling System 7, which operate out-of-band on a separate data network. Because of the in-ba ...
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Class 4 Telephone Switch
A class-4, or tandem, telephone switch is a U.S. telephone company central office telephone exchange used to interconnect local exchange carrier offices for long distance communications in the public switched telephone network. A class-4 switch does not connect directly to telephones; instead, it connects to other class-4 switches and to class-5 telephone switches. The telephones of service subscribers are wired to class-5 switches. When a call is placed to a telephone that is not on the same class-5 switch as the originating subscriber, the call may be routed through one or more class-4 switches to reach its destination. Etymology ''Tandem'' derives from the Latin adverb ''tandem'' meaning ''at length'', and is used in English to mean a group of two people or machines working together, usually in series. A tandem switch is used to interconnect other switches via trunks. Thus, tandem switches are always part of a series of switches and lines that connect telephone callers to ...
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Direct Distance Dialing
Direct distance dialing (DDD) is a telecommunication service feature in North America by which a caller may, without operator assistance, call any other user outside the local calling area. Direct dialing by subscribers typically requires extra digits to be dialed as prefixes to the directory telephone number of the destination. International Direct Distance Dialing (IDDD) extends the system beyond the geographic boundaries of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). History The first direct-dialed long-distance telephone calls were possible in the New Jersey communities of Englewood and Teaneck. Customers of the ENglewood 3, ENglewood 4 and TEaneck 7 exchanges, who could already dial telephone numbers in the New York City area, could place calls to eleven major cities across the United States by dialing the three-digit area code and the seven-digit directory number. Local telephone numbers still consisted of the first two letters of the central office name and five digits. On ...
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Multi-frequency
In telephony, multi-frequency signaling (MF) is a type of signaling that was introduced by the Bell System after World War II. It uses a combination of audible tones for address (telephone number) transport and supervision signaling on trunk lines between central offices. The signaling is sent ''in-band'' over the same channel as the bearer channel used for voice traffic. Multi-frequency signaling defines electronic signals that consist of a combination of two audible frequencies, usually selected from a set of six frequencies. Over several decades, various types of MF signaling were developed, including national and international varieties. The CCITT standardization process specified the American Bell System version as ''Regional Standard No. 1'', or Signalling System R1, and a corresponding European standard as Signalling System R2. Both were largely replaced by digital systems, such as Signalling System 7, which operate out-of-band on a separate data network. Because of the in-ba ...
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Panel Switch
The Panel Machine Switching System is a type of automatic telephone exchange for urban service that was used in the Bell System in the United States for seven decades. The first semi-mechanical types of this design were installed in 1915 in Newark, New Jersey, and the last were retired in the same city in 1983. The Panel switch was named for its tall panels which consisted of layered strips of terminals. Between each strip was placed an insulating layer, which kept each metal strip electrically isolated from the ones above and below. These terminals were arranged in ''banks'', five of which occupied an average selector frame. Each bank contained 100 sets of terminals, for a total of 500 sets of terminals per frame. At the bottom, the frame had two electric motors to drive sixty selectors up and down by electromagnetically controlled clutches. As calls were completed through the system, selectors moved vertically over the sets of terminals until they reached the desired location, at ...
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