STROWGER SWITCHING SYSTEMS.

Strowger developed a system of automatic switching using an electromechanical switch based

around electromagnets and pawls. In this selector, a moving wiper (with contacts on the end)
moved up to and around a bank of many other contacts, making a connection with any one of
them.
Selector Theory
A selector starts in the 'home' position and with each 'impulse' the wiper contacts would progress
round the output bank to the next position. Each output would be connected to a different
subscriber, thus the caller could connect to any other subscriber who was connected to that bank,
without any manual assistance from an operator.

Figure 1 - Diagram of a simple Selector

In Figure 1 (above), the selector has 10 outputs, so a caller can choose to connect to any of 10
different subscribers by dialling any digit from 1 to 0 (0=10). This sort of automatic selector is
known as a Uniselector, as it moves in just one plane (rotary).
Two-Motion Selectors typically have 10 rows of 10 outlets, thus 100 possible outlets altogether.
A two-motion selector can therefore accept two dialled digits from a subscriber and route the call
to any of 100 numbers. . The first digit moves the selector veritically up to the corresponding
level and then the second digit moves the wipers around the contacts of that level. This is shown
in figure 2, below.

 
Figure 2 - A Two-Motion "Final" Selector
Most numbers dialled are several digits longer, and therefore pass through a chain of
selectors.Selectors previous to the Final Selectors are different; they are called Group Selectors.
  
Figure 3 - A "Group" Selector and a 'bank' for it to slot into
The Rotary Dial
In Strowger's system, selecting digits to dial was done by a complicated system involving five
separate wires. Later, the system of Timed Pulse (TP) dialling was inventned using a rotary dial.
With TP dialling, only one pair of wires is required for a telephone, the speech pair. To dial a
digit, the circuit is interrupted according to the number dialled so, for example, if you dialled a '4'
then the line would be pulsed four times, quickly in succession. After a moment, it was assumed
that the digit was complete and that any further pulses belonged to the next digit. In order to
ensure that successive digits didn't come too soon and thus be mistaken for pulses belonging to
the previous digit, the finger stop on the dial was put some way round so that after removing
your finger from the dial, there was a minimum time taken for the dial to return to the home
position. It is important to note here that for the purposes of dialling, the digit '0' sends TEN
pulses for dialling - i.e. the selector will step around to the 10th position.
Progress Tones
Having removed the need for an operator, a system was required to indicate call progress to the
caller. A series of distinctive tones was developed which were produced by a machine called a
Ring Generator. The ring generator was entirely electromechanical; different tones were
produced by rotating cams connected to a generator. As well as generating the tones, the Ring
Generator machine also provided timed pulses which were used by various processes throughout
the exchange. The progress tones produced were as follows :
 Dial Tone (DT). This is a 33 c/s continuous note and is applied to the line after the
subscriber has lifted his handset and the switching equipment has allocated him an
available outlet for this call to proceed. There would have been a physical limit on the
number of calls an exchange could handle so if all equipment was already in use, the
subscriber would not get dial tone. The actual pitch of the dial Tone varied from
exchange to exchange depending on the adjustment of the ring generator.
 Busy Tone (BT). A higher pitched note of 400 c/s interrupted to give a cadence of 0.75
seconds on, 0.75 seconds off. Busy tone indicated either that the called subscriber is
already off-hook (busy) or that the route to the called subscriber is congested. In later
systems, a slightly different cadence was introduced in order to distinguish between these
two scenarios.
 Number Unobtainable Tone (NUT). Identical pitch to the busy tone but continuous. This
tone is used to indicate that a number is out of service, faulty or that a spare line has been
dialled.
 Ring Tone (RT). A tone of 133c/s which interrupted in the same cadence as the ring
current which rings the telephone's bell at the called party's end : 0.4 seconds on, 0.2
seconds off.
 1 Not Allocated 6 MN Automatic Telephone Exchanges
The required features of any automatic switching system are as follows :
2 ABC 7 PRS
Function Performed by
3 DEF 8 TUV
Subscriber Line
4 GHI 9 WXY To detect that a caller has lifted his handset
Circuit
5 JKL 0 0 (Operator)
Subscriber Line
Some Examples : To 'busy' his line so that he is not interrupted
BARnet (227) Circuit
EALing (325)
HENdon (436) Linefinder &
KINgston (546) To allocate equipment to the caller, if available
Allotter
MILl Hill (645)
PUTney (788)
VICtoria (842) To indicate to the caller that he may proceed the dialling Dial Tone
The original British lettering To accept digits from the caller and route accordingly Group Selectors
scheme was as follows :
To connect the call to the appropriatesubscriber Final Selector

To either return Busy Tone if busy or apply ring signal to

the called party's phone Final Selector
and ring tone to caller and then cease ringing when the & Ring Generator
called party answers

To detect the answering of the call and register it against

Metering Circuits
the caller's account

PG/CSH Alarms
To alert engineers in case of fault
etc.
Figure 4 - Facilities of an Automatic Exchange

Figure 5 - Simplified Routing of a Local Call

Crossbar switch
General properties
A crossbar switch is an assembly of individual switches between multiple inputs and multiple outputs. The
switches are arranged in a matrix. If the crossbar switch has M inputs and N outputs, then a crossbar has
a matrix with M x N cross-points or places where the "bars" cross. At each crosspoint is a switch; when
closed, it connects one of M inputs to one of N outputs. A given crossbar is a single layer, non-blocking
switch. Collections of crossbars can be used to implement multiple layer and/or blocking switches. A
crossbar switching system is also called a co-ordinate switching system.

Time-division multiplexing (TDM) is a type of digital or (rarely)analog multiplexing in which two or

more signals or bit streams are transferred apparently simultaneously as sub-channels in one communication
channel, but are physically taking turns on the channel. The time domain is divided into several recurrent
timeslots of fixed length, one for each sub-channel. A sample byte or data block of sub-channel 1 is
transmitted during timeslot 1, sub-channel 2 during timeslot 2, etc. One TDM frame consists of one timeslot per
sub-channel plus a synchronization channel and sometimes error correction channel before the
synchronization. After the last sub-channel, error correction, and synchronization, the cycle starts all over again
with a new frame, starting with the second sample, byte or data block from sub-channel 1, etc.
Application examples
 The plesiochronous digital hierarchy (PDH) system, also known as the PCM system, for digital
transmission of several telephone calls over the same four-wire copper cable (T-carrier or E-carrier) or fiber
cable in the circuit switched digital telephone network
 The SDH and synchronous optical networking (SONET) network transmission standards, that have
surpassed PDH.
 The RIFF (WAV) audio standard interleaves left and right stereo signals on a per-sample basis
 The left-right channel splitting in use for stereoscopic liquid crystal shutter glasses
TDM can be further extended into the time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme, where several stations
connected to the same physical medium, for example sharing the samefrequency channel, can communicate.
Application examples include:
 The GSM telephone system
 The Tactical Data Links Link 16 and Link 22