Lines drawn for digital switch battle at Geneva

With 650 exhibitors, the recent Telecom 83 Exhibition at Geneva provided a shop window for the whole spectrum of telecommunications technology ¿ from copper cables to satellites. Amid this veritable plethora of products, however, the quickening market for digital telephone exchanges was the dominant influence. Securing a share of this market, worth an estimated £33.5 billion a year, and growing, is clearly the principal aim of every major manufacturer of exchange equipment. Their stands at Geneva were, almost without exception, the largest and the most impressive in the exhibition. Built to multi-million-pound budgets, they had all the symbolic presence of pavilions of medieval knights gathered for a tournament.