In data communications, an automatic switching system is a switching system in which all the operations required to execute the three phases of Information transfer transactions are automatically executed in response to signals from a user end-instrument.
In an automatic switching system, the information-transfer transaction is performed without human intervention, except for initiation of the access phase and the disengagement phase by a user.
In telephony, it refers to a telephone exchange in which all the operations required to set up, supervise, and release connections required for telephone calls are automatically performed in response to signals from a calling device. This distinction lost importance as manual switching declined during the 20th century.
Famous quotes containing the words automatic and/or system:
“She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The dominant metaphor of conceptual relativism, that of differing points of view, seems to betray an underlying paradox. Different points of view make sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system on which to plot them; yet the existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic incomparability.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)