Electronic Switching System

In telecommunications, an electronic switching system (ESS) is:

  • A telephone exchange based on the principles of time-division multiplexing of digitized analog signals. An electronic switching system digitizes analog signals from subscriber loops, and interconnects them by assigning the digitized signals to the appropriate time slots. It may also interconnect digital data or voice circuits.
  • A switching system with major devices constructed of semiconductor components. A semi-electronic switching system that had reed relays or crossbar matrices for its talk paths, as well as semiconductor components, was also considered to be an ESS in the 20th century. 1ESS switch was a prominent example.

In the late 20th century most telephone exchanges were eliminated that were not time-division ones, so interest in this distinction became primarily historical. When the term is still used, it means approximately the same thing as Stored Program Control exchange

Famous quotes containing the words electronic and/or system:

    Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.
    John Berger (b. 1926)

    If mothers are to be successful in achieving their child-rearing goals, they must have the inner freedom to find their own value system and within that system to find what is acceptable to them and what is not. This means leaving behind the anxiety, but also the security, of simplistic good-bad formulations and deciding for themselves what they want to teach their children.
    Elaine Heffner (20th century)