Time sharing as a basis for electronic telephone switching. A switched-highways system

All telephone systems incorporate time-sharing techniques in order to economize in apparatus, but the extent of their application depends upon the operating speeds and adaptability of the components used. The introduction of electronic techniques enables various switching, coding and sampling techniques to be used to achieve a higher degree of time sharing than has previously been possible. In a system now under development these principles are the main basis of design. Connections are made over common leads using pulse channels each of which may be used for connections to any line. The connections are controlled by register and supervisory apparatus in which information is received, stored, manipulated and transmitted by common apparatus which operates on the connection pulse channels. Common selecting, translating and marking apparatus is used to set up all connections on a one-at-a-time basis, and all apparatus apart from the line-terminal equipment is time-shared by the connections using either sampling or switching techniques. Connection, register and supervisory apparatus is also time-shared by coding. The capital and maintenance costs of such a system are as yet indeterminate, but it is expected that they will be competitive.