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:
“The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one’s way to where the country is.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)