Some Architectural Alternatives in the Design of a Digital Switch

This paper presents a general survey of some common trends emerging in the field of digital central office architectural concepts, as promoted by technological progress and countered by the constraints of the existing telephone network establishment. No specific systems are covered, but solutions which might indicate a trend are identified and discussed. The main body of this paper is devoted to an analysis of digital central offices and the impact of technological progress on their architecture. General block diagrams are given and major subsystems are discussed. The discussion specifically concerns the line interface, the network and evolving control strategies in relation to technological tradeoffs.