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 car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old- fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom. In terms of pollution, noise and human life, the price of that freedom may be high, but perhaps the car, by the very muddle and confusion it causes, may be holding back the remorseless spread of the regimented, electronic society.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)