Talk:Telephone exchange

Nomenclature

I suggest that, for the sake of clarity we use these terms throughout, pointing out the other sometimes confusing usages in a special para of its own.

• exchange building (=US "central office", UK "telephone exchange": can house switches, concentrators, or both)
• remote concentrator
• telephone switch (=UK "telephone exchange", too, but being replaced in UK technical use by the US term, for reasons of clarity) — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Anome (talk • contribs) 09:36, 9 July 2002 (UTC)

Ok - I spent 3 years in and about the BC Telephone system from 1969 to 1972 and the nomenclature at that time was something like:

• Exchange: 10,000 numbers denoted by common first 3 digits of a 7 digit number
• Central Office: where the equipment for one or more Exchanges lived
• Switch: the equipment used to implement an "exchange". Distance between COs was dictated by the physical characteristics of the twisted pairs used as trunks between offices - typically around 18,000-25,000' by cable (4-6 miles) in urban areas.

Since then I've been involved in specifying systems for a CLEC (1997) and things have changed - electronic exchanges and fibre optics have taken over and:

Switch: hardware capable of one or more sets of 10,000 (or in some cases groups of 1000) numbers, each of which might be terminated in a "remote concentrator" many miles (100+) from the CO.

So, you see that the nomenclature changed with the time period.

comments? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richardpitt (talk • contribs) 06:17, 17 November 2003 (UTC)

Topological sort

The section on topological sort needs to be rewritten. I find it hard to understand (which is surprising since this is a featured article). -- Mordomo 00:23, 30 November 2004 (UTC)

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. If some of the external links are reliable sources and were used as references, they can be placed in a References section too. See the cite sources link for how to format them. Thank you, and please leave me a message when a few references have been added to the article. - Taxman 19:46, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

FARC

The following objections to this article should be adressed: Well, this is the first time I have seen a lead which consists of a note and bulleted list :> (Update: Lead is better, but still strange - 2 one sentence paras and one giant para don't look good. ). No references, bad prose (lots of single sentence paras) and stub sections, some strange bolding/red links in the bottom, notes and sources in text (not formatted). Not up to a FA stanard. The lead should be divided into 2-3 paras of similar size instead of the current one giant and two tiny. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 09:32, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Update. I see progress, but it is still short of FA, I am afraid. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:45, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Description of central office

This article does not address several major functions of a central office. I suggest further contributions to this article that elaborate on how central offices support public data networks. It might also be worth discussing the regulatory framework that allows CLECs and other network providers collocation space and access to interconnection facilities. This is a very important role of central offices and it should be included as part of this article --teglin — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teglin333 (talk • contribs) 04:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Mobile phone standards table

The mobile phone standards table is irrelevant to this article. Please provide some explanation as to why it should be included. Tables should supplement information in the article. Also, the table disrupted the formatting of the historic perspective section and moved the central office photo. Teglin 15:57, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

International View

I agree with the lack of world view and it being Anglosphere-centric, but where to begin? There are X number of countries and each country has a patriotic-ugly PSTN or is in some deregulation mish-mash. Luis F. Gonzalez 18:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Well yes this article is written in English. As it happens I know a little about European switching in the 1970s and would welcome contributions by anyone who knows more about equipment and practices among non English speakers. In particular, what's been happening in China and the former Socialist Community of Nations? Jim.henderson 13:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The article needs to reference or state that it is U.S. (North American) centric. The telecom industry is a moving target. Additionally each language's Wikipedia (personal note - NOT countries) will have a certain navel gazing. This little article in the German wiki on telephone switches just makes me want to hit the brain candy. http://de.wiki.x.io/wiki/Vermittlungsanlage. Luis F. Gonzalez 20:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I can tell you what is happening in Africa - every time they try to get a telephone network going in certain places, there are rogues who go at night and dig up the telephone cables in order to strip the copper out and sell it as bulk for smelting. Kinda goes against the progress concept. Rarelibra 17:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

New or ancient infrastructure is just a scavenging yard for the impoverished, ignorant and criminal. When in Rome, do as the Vandals do. A while ago, Euro-centric telco's wanted to sell all mobile (wireless) infrastructure in the third world. Luis F. Gonzalez 20:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

They are, and it's working in many places. There are quite a few countries that are more advanced in telecommunications than the United States. Imagine getting wireless coverage anywhere in a country - even in the subway or on a 120mph train? Amazing. Rarelibra 23:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I hope someone compiles this valuable information into an article. Just not this one.

Jim.henderson 00:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

No doubt about some places being more advanced. My theory is that the U.S. is the world's test lab. All the best and worst ideas are implemented in the U.S. first, creating a quilt of this and that, with the survival of the fittest (not necessarily the best) or most advanced. If the new trend was not started by the "world community", ala Spice Girls, the rest of "world community" then picks the best features and creates a brand new widget. Some ideas are slick and nifty for the technorati, but really plain silly for the 3rd world. Example, a little old lady (i.e. my grandmother) wanting to make a long distance phone call thru a voice recognition system on a pay phone. HA! Luis F. Gonzalez 04:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree. There are many times where the US either lacks creativity or innovative thought, or times where the apathy and ignorance keeps the US from real progress. Take, for instance, the fact that there are many places in the US where you can go and not be able to get a signal for your cellular phone. In India, you can go anywhere and get signal for your cell phone (and in Japan as well). As far as "high speed" Internet, our fastest broadband access here looks like a 12k modem over in Korea - where not only is real high-speed access cheap, but plentiful as well. There is medical technology brought to Iraq by the Germans that isn't even available in the United States yet! Why? One can only figure because it is not too profitable for the doctors and HMOs (or something like that). Rarelibra 05:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Good grief. Progressive countries and apathetic Spice Girls? Am I alone in thinking this section has gone seriously off the rails and ought to be wiped clean?

Jim.henderson 21:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The telecom environment in the US is different because of regulation, financial, geographical and time of installation (first to implement) reasons. There is way too much investment in buried copper cable or buried fiber and equipment to just replace it all. As a side note: millions of dollars in taxes are paid each year for real property which includes copper and fiber cable owned by the telephone companies. In some areas, depending on the time or geographic area, there may be fiber or copper. Depending on geographic reasons there may be a combination of microwave(wireless),fiber and copper. Equipment costs $$ money and at times is subsidized by the US government through funds or low interest loans. Without incentives, there is no financial reason to install massive amounts of equipment and cabling (or wireless) to facilitate faster service for a few people. In some foreign countries there were places that did not have telephone service as little as 25 years ago, which allows them to skip the old TDM technology and copper cable and go directly to fiber or wireless and Carrier Ethernet technology thereby providing VOIP and fast internet. A company needs to recover an investment in order to stay in business and not become a monopoly. If you think about it, the average person in America used dial up until about 2000 because we were centered around 98% of the population having TDM phones. Around 2000 Wireless became more prevalent and affordable but was still not fast enough for data rates. Everyone screams for super fast data but does not want to pay the price to completely replace all existing equipment and facilities. DEO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.17.202.245 (talk) 21:17, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Too americanised I say. Maybe some more photos of exchanges? 150.101.76.15 05:03, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Pictures? Doesn't a building in one country look much like a building in another? Yes, let's have more words from around the world that explain the differences in what's going on inside, but not more pictures of the outside of buildings except where they illustrate functional peculiarities. Maybe fewer pictures. Jim.henderson 05:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Off-Hook Tip condition

Tip condition? What's that? Jim.henderson 00:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah. British term, for a line that has gone offhook in order to make a call, but has not yet received dialtone. Or, being British, dialling tone. A handy concept, for which American jargon doesn't provide a near equivalent.

Jim.henderson 23:34, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Out of place images

The maps of exchanges and wire centers are not very informative. They (1) are entirely American, and (2) indicate little more to the casual eye than the fact that American places that have a lot of people have a lot of telephone exchanges. They are like a night photo from orbit, showing where the lights are on. These maps should go to an article about MFJ, if they belong anywhere in the encyclopedia. Kind of a shame, since they are nice maps but their relevance to the topic is tangential.

Tangential also is a photo of an office building. If the exterior gave a hint of telephony going on inside, for example the old Post Office Tower in London with its microwave horns, it would be relevant. This illustration, however, doesn't illustrate much of anything. Jim.henderson 23:34, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If the data for wire centers (or equivalent) and/or central offices for other countries was readily available, I would present the same maps - but the data is not available. If you know different, point me in the direction. However, 'from orbit' is a pretty harsh term to use as it is an overall perspective of just the US. With 24,000+ wire centers and central offices, what would you like? A view of each state? It is to give the overall effect of mapping to show the exhaustive locations. Simply put. The building, well, I agree - especially when most central offices are very boring locations anyway - maybe if the photo showed the inside guts of a central office, then we'd be talking interesting. But don't bang on the maps just because they are 'entirely American'. They are an addition to an article and not centric. Plus a lot of other countries do not treat exchanges and wire centers the same at all. So it is merely an inclusion of one system in the overall article topic. Rarelibra 01:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, most countries think wire center data are secret or boring or for other reasons unpublished. Only in the USA does an old lawsuit force publication in uniform, machine readable format. That's why the maps would fit better in Local access and transport area or any similar article that may discuss or illustrate the geography of American telephony. Here, they look little different than a map of Post Office Section Centers would, or Catholic Diocese, or pizza delivery zones, or electric power grids, or police precincts, or legislative consituencies, or maps of other activities that divide the territory in order to serve the people. Each such map will show a great purple splotch where people are numerous, and leave rural areas like northern Maine white. There, isn't that a little less harsh?

Note the map in Zip code which covers the USA. The country has something like as many Section Centers as LATAs, and about as many Post Offices as officially listed Exchanges, but the postal map is informative because it doesn't try to show all the POs. And it isn't in a general article about Post Offices; it's in a specific one about how USPS divides the country.

Yes, maps of the hundreds of legal "exchange" areas or wire centers in each individual LATA would be much more informative, if they were put in the correct article. Each one could be as readable as the USA map you already made of the LATAs. Of course, such a breakdown would be a huge job. Jim.henderson 21:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Jim - maybe if I expand the information about Wire Centers into a paragraph (explaining how the names are assigned - such as CHCGILFN for "Chicago, IL - Franklin (St)" location), and added a couple of informative example maps instead of the "orbit" view (lol). What do you think? Rarelibra 00:53, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ooh, goody more maps. I love maps, just not in this article which is already too big. I mean, either the map is of Chicago or New York or otherwise local, thus lacking relevance for distant people, or else it's continental or more, thus to too small a scale to be informative. A map of the world numbering plan areas can be OK since there are only a little over a hundred country codes, but a US map of area codes gets busy because there's over two hundred and they concentrate thickly in those urbanized areas that look solid purple or white on an exchange map or orbital night photo.

So yes, if more maps are a good thing, they are a good thing in an article that's about the geography of telephony. And, lacking good data sets elsewhere, telephone maps are necessarily of the USA and its parts. So, the place to start displaying telephone exchange maps is in the LATA article which, not by intention but in effect, is the article about USA phone geograpby. More detailed maps could cover a particular state or operating company. Heck, from memory I could draw a map showing the dozen places where I've repaired switches in Manhattan. Not that my talents run in that direction, but it would make a nice illustration for the history I already wrote in the New York Telephone article.

Yes, by all means make more good maps. But better to move them into an article that's specialized on that topic, just as the maps of the Dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America are in an article about the geographical divisions of that denomination rather than in a general article about the Church in America.

Jim.henderson 03:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Could we get rid of those American maps? Also, those 2 photos outside offices/exchanges are irrelevant... they show a building, but do not have anything remotely related to telecomms,except for the fact that some american company owns them. 150.101.76.15 05:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Central Office

This article really ought to be moved to "Central Office". X570 02:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

No, Central Office should be moved to Telephone Exchange. The expression "Central Office" is too ambiguous. Every large company has a Central Office. Blue Cross has a central office. Starbucks has a central office. General Motors has a central office. "Telephone Exchange" tells the reader that the industry is telecom and not something else. Greensburger 08:12, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

My favorite name would be "wire center" for the place where the wires come together to be switched, etc. Anyway, what most bothers me is the history of American switching section. It's a lovely piece but it has little connection to the rest of this article, which is about inside plant that's actually working today. Ancient history (much of which I worked through) would better belong in its own article. Jim.henderson 16:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Distribution frame

Ancient history question for Jim Henderson: What is a "distribution frame"? Is that the long (40') frame where the pairs from the street terminated on one side of the frame, and pairs to the switches terminated on the other side of the frame, and in the middle of the frame were thousands of crossed pairs physically connecting the switch wires to the street wires? So every time a subscriber ordered another phone and got an unused number, somebody had to physically connect a pair of wires across the frame. Is that a distribution frame? If not, what did you call the thing I described? Greensburger 22:58, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. See Distribution frame and Main distribution frame. I wrote part of the former and most of the latter. Oh. I must ensure that the present article has a link. Distribution frames are alive and well, having changed in the ways I described.

Oh! Silly me. There are separate Main distribution frame and Main Distribution Frame articles. I foolishly worked on one of them weeks ago without noticing that the link in the present article goes to the other. Tomorrow I'll merge the two, carefully, unless someone beats me to it. I won't bother with the rigmarole of writing proposals in the two articles. Jim.henderson 09:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Jim. And silly me for not looking for a Wiki article on Distribution frames. Greensburger 04:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Anybody kindly look and see whether I omitted anything important in the merger, introduced errors, left ugly seams between the merged articles, or just don't know what I'm talking about, being an old switchman and never a framer. Jim.henderson 05:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The System

Looking around Wikipedia, I see articles on specific parts of the network, with less thorough coverage of outside plant than inside, and no article at all with an elementary summary of how telephone signals get from your phone jack to the jack across town or across the ocean that you're calling. I figure this is a need. This "telphone exchange" article comes closest but it's mostly about switchgear of the 20th century rather than anything either comprehensive or modern. I could create a new "telphone system" article or some similar name, but instead I intend to expand an existing inadequate one. My current candidate is "Telephony" which today is poorly organized despite being short, and is mostly about the fairly unimportant topic of IP telephony.

Naturally my version will have links that eventually lead to links to articles for 1ESS switch and Main distribution frame and TASI and other topics, but it will be a broad summary of the system and not get bogged down in details. It will be approximately like the data path portion of DSL modem except of course since the phone system is more complex the article will end up being longer. Does anyone have a better idea where to start than with Telephony? Jim.henderson 01:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Puskás?

Hi there! Perhaps Tivadar Puskás should be mentioned in this article as - though some would argue, but - he was the inventor of the phone exchange. (Also credited in Hello: According to Thomas Edison, "Tivadar Puskas was the first person to suggest the idea of a telephone exchange".) See: Puskás on IEC.ch ; Early telephone history. -- CsTom 16:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Might be worth a "See also" but the article in question says much about what a great fellow he was and little to describe what was invented or what kind of work he did that qualifies him as having invented this item. Edison was a great fellow too, but his telephone work as far as I know had nothing to do with switching, so he's not such a great recommendation even if were to say "invent" rather than "suggest". I hope you can find more relevant material. Jim.henderson 21:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems that someone has decided he was the inventor, as he now appears as such in the article. Anyway, I thought I would mention what I found in an old public-domain book (Herbert N. Casson, The History of the Telephone, 1910 [1]). According to this, the first exchange was built by the burglar-alarm business of E. T. Holmes in Boston in 1877. Holmes just hooked up a couple of telephones to his already-invented burglar-alarm switchboard. Since WP claims that Puskás invented, or 'suggested', the idea in the same city in the same year, I wonder if there was any connection between the two men. --Heron (talk) 09:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

stepping switch sounds

In the "sounds" sub-section, the following questionable sentence appears:

"Some systems had a continual, rhythmic "clack-clack-clack" from wire spring relays that made reorder (120 ipm) and busy (60 ipm) signals."

I recall that reorder, busy, and several other beep-beep-beep signals were generated by a silently running electric motor that rotated (through a worm gear) a commutator drum made of bakelite containing several exposed bronze segments of various sizes that made contact with brushes. Electromagnetic relays fed these beeping signals to selected lines, but most of the clack-clack-clack sounds in the exchange building came from stepping switches doing the step-by-step sequence in response to pairs of rotary dialed digits. Touchtone replaced step-by-step. Reorder, busy, etc are still being done, but with electronic switching rather than electromagnetic relays. If that is correct, the above sentence should be changed. Greensburger (talk) 15:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, technology varied and changed, but remember the paragraph in question starts with "On a pre-dawn Sunday morning" ie when steppa switches were silent. I indeed saw your quiet drum and brush machines in Step and Panel switches, and heard the rhythmically thumping Office Interruptor Frames of 1XB switch and the similar but higher pitched drumming of wire spring interruptors in a few upgraded 1XB and many 5XB switch. And no, TT didn't precisely replace Strowger switches, since in many places the former arrived before the latter departed. During the overlap in the early 1970s, I tested and repaired the Touch Tone to Dial Pulse Converters. Jim.henderson (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

link to telestation (Swedish)

When i look up Telestation in swedish, I get a similar idea of the telephone exchange.

HOWEVER, even though several other languages are listed, English is not one of them!

is there something called a telestation in Europe that doesn't exist in N.A. or what? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.233.236.3 (talk) 22:09, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I speak no Swedish, my grandmother's native language, but notice an Interwiki link to sv:Telefonväxel which seems to be about telephone switchboards. My guess is, different languages conventionally divide differently the concepts that in American English are called "wire center", "exchange area" "switchboard" and "automatic telephone switching system". Alternatively, the Wikipedia editors in various languages including English may have made different arbitrary choices of division points among these and related concepts. This is one of the difficulties of translation. Quickly checking articles in Spanish and French, which are more familiar to me, I don't find these difficulties immediately. Editors with wider language skills should check, and make appropriate Interwiki links. Jim.henderson (talk) 18:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

File:Nortel DMS100 public voice exchange.jpg Nominated for Deletion

	An image used in this article, File:Nortel DMS100 public voice exchange.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Deletion requests June 2011 Factual error in description. This is a PBX installation, not a central office, and definitely not a DMS-100.
	A discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise consider finding a replacement image before deletion occurs. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 21:56, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

"Early" automatic exchanges

The article has a section called "Early automatic exchanges," but it only briefly mentions that exchanges were somehow automated in "the early 1900s." The rest of the section is about computers, dial tones, ANI, and DTMF, none of which existed in the early 1900s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.186.5.185 (talk) 07:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Introduction poorly focussed

There's a lot about "rate centre" and "local calling area" in the intro which needs to be moved to a section in the article body. These are both regulatory constructs and a bit off-topic as each may contain multiple exchanges - or even be mismatched to the exchange boundaries. K7L (talk) 04:05, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Most of the article is a random accumulation of material. Kbrose (talk) 20:37, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Satellite PBX foto

The foto of the satellite PBX needs to be rotated 90 degrees clockwise... 201.77.180.126 (talk) 19:27, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

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First telephone exchange?

Is the following text in this article accurate?

"The world's first commercial telephone exchange opened on November 12, 1877 in Friedrichsberg close to Berlin. George W. Coy designed and built the first commercial US telephone exchange which opened in New Haven, Connecticut in January, 1878."

The sources I was able to find do not support the Friedrichsberg claim.

"The first commercial telephone exchange in the world began operations on January 28, 1878 in a storefront of the Boardman Building in New Haven. George W. Coy designed and built the world's first switchboard for commercial use. Coy was inspired by Alexander Graham Bell's lecture at the Skiff Opera House in New Haven on April 27, 1877." [2]

"In 1878, the world’s first telephone exchange opened in New Haven. The first telephone subscriber was John E. Todd..."[3]

"Many, including Bell, realized the phone’s one-to-one usage limited its potential, but it was Coy who first implemented a solution in the Elm City. In 1877, Coy, then the manager of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Co., attended a lecture given by Bell at the Skiff Opera House in New Haven. During the lecture, Bell demonstrated the effectiveness of a three-way phone network by connecting with Hartford and Middletown on a call.

Coy was intrigued and obtained a Bell telephone franchise for New Haven and Middlesex counties later that year. The agreement stipulated that Bell’s company would own 35 percent of Coy’s new venture. Coy enlisted Walter Lewis, superintendent of the New Haven Clock Co., and Herrick Frost, a prominent businessman, as investors, and incorporated the New Haven District Telephone Co. on Jan. 15, 1878.

Soon after, on Jan. 28, from the Boardman Building in New Haven, the newly formed company launched the world’s first commercial telephone exchange. The exchange allowed anyone connected to the network to call anyone else on the network, though they would have to call into a central operator who would transfer the call."[4]

"Tivadar Puskás (1844-1893) was born in Budapest. He was a Hungarian inventor, telephone pioneer, and inventor of the telephone exchange.

In 1879 Puskás set up a telephone exchange in Paris. In Paris he was greatly helped by his younger brother Ferenc Puskás who later established the first telephone exchange in Pest.

Puskás was working on his idea for a telegraph exchange when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. He decided to get in touch with the American inventor Thomas Edison. Edison said "Tivadar Puskas was the first person to suggest the idea of a telephone exchange". Puskás's idea finally became a reality in 1877 in Boston.

In 1879 Puskás set up a telephone exchange in Paris. In Paris he was greatly helped by his younger brother Ferenc Puskás who later established the first telephone exchange in Pest."[www.viszki.sulinet.hu/tananyagtar/angol/Virag/sol7.pdf]

"When he heard about Bell’s new invention, the telephone, Puskás realized that he should build a telephone exchange. He visited and convinced Edison that the great service of telephone is needed to be available to the public as well. In 1879, he built Europe’s first telephone exchange in Paris. In Budapest, the world’s 4th exchange commenced in 1881." [5]

--Guy Macon (talk) 20:11, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

It is quoted with a reference, but I clarified the statement. commercial was misleading. Kbrose (talk) 22:08, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Citation needed

I put a citation needed template in one of the sections and it says “article”. Can someone tell me how to get it to say section? Theobegley2013 (talk) 00:34, 8 November 2023 (UTC)