The Datran system

The Datran system is designed to serve the specific needs of the data communications user. Data communications terminals almost universally employ a digital format; therefore, an early consideration was the use of digital transmission in lieu of the analog transmission employed by most conventional common-carrier systems. The location of the potential users was examined, this having an important bearing on the transmission media selected. Growth expectancy for future years establishes the base upon which to plan the initial system capacity, the hierarchy of system subassemblies for economical modular growth, and phased construction. The employment of digital channel derivation equipment provides a high channel capacity for a given channel bandwidth as compared to analog transmission and permits the use of highly reliable integrated components at a significant reduction in channel end costs. Time-division multiplexing (TDM) switching with a stored program controller provides reliability and flexibility to meet the changing needs of the data communications user and affords significant savings in space, power, and implementation costs of conventional space-division switches.