4ESS Switch - Development History

Development History

4ESS development began in about 1970, mainly in Naperville, Illinois under the direction of Henry Earle Vaughan. AT&T Long Distance was the primary customer for the switch. Driving development from the customer's perspective was AT&T VP Billy Oliver. Previous switching systems had all switched an analog voice signal; and consequently the decision to switch in a digital voice format was controversial at the time, both from a technical and economic viewpoint. Nevertheless, visionaries like Vaughn and Oliver recognized that the network would eventually become digital and consequently so must switching.

Read more about this topic:  4ESS Switch

Famous quotes containing the words development and/or history:

    “The young women, what can they not learn, what can they not achieve, with Columbia University annex thrown open to them? In this great outlook for women’s broader intellectual development I see the great sunburst of the future.”
    —M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)

    “In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.”
    —Stefan Zweig (18811942)