History
Call waiting was introduced to North America in the early 1970s when the first generation of electronic switch machines built by Western Electric, Electronic Signaling System 1 started to replace older mechanical equipment in the old Bell System local telephone companies. At first, some smaller municipalities had it only on a specific phone exchange (e.g., phone customers in Trenton, Michigan initially had to have a phone number starting with 671 to have call waiting, since 671 was at that time the only exchange in that area served by one of the new ESS switches), but as demand for it became more widespread, it eventually became available on all phone exchanges as the older equipment was phased out.
In Europe call waiting was also introduced in the 1970s with the introduction of the first digital switching systems such as the Ericsson AXE, Alcatel E10 and System 12. It was also available on some Ericsson crossbar exchanges, such as the ARE11 which, while electromechanical, was computerised. Other digital systems such as the UK's System X also supported the service. Switching systems developed in the 1980s such as the German Siemens/Bosch EWSD also had call waiting.
Read more about this topic: Call Waiting
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)