Electronic Switching System
In telecommunications, an electronic switching system (ESS) is a telephone switch that uses digital electronics and computerized control to interconnect telephone circuits for the purpose of establishing telephone calls.
The generations of telephone switches before the advent of electronic switching in the 1950s used purely electro-mechanical relay systems and analog control electronics. The first generation of electronic switching systems in the 1960s were not entirely digital in nature, but used reed relay-operated metallic paths or crossbar switches operated by stored program control (SPC) systems.
The first prominent large-scale electronic switching system was the Number One Electronic Switching System (1ESS) of the Bell System in the United States, introduced in Succasunna, New Jersey, in May 1965.
Later electronic switching systems implemented the digital representation of the electrical audio signals on subscriber loops by digitizing the analog signals and processing the resulting data for transmission between central offices. Time-division multiplexing (TDM) technology permitted the simultaneous transmission of multiple telephone calls on a single wire connection between central offices or other electronic switches, resulting in dramatic capacity improvements of the telephone network.
With the advances of digital electronics starting in the 1960s telephone switches employed semiconductor device components in increasing measure.
In the late 20th century most telephone exchanges without TDM processing were eliminated and the term electronic switching system became largely a historical distinction for the older SPC systems.
See also
- List of telephone switches
- Stored Program Control exchange
- Destination routing
References
This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration document "Federal Standard 1037C" (in support of MIL-STD-188).
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