The evolving role of telecommunications switching

The impact of technology changes on the capabilities of telecommunications switching systems is discussed. It is argued that to obtain a combination of rapid response to market needs, ultra-high network integrity, and continued choice of software and hardware providers, network operators will move toward the increased use of distributed communications, computing, and management environments, using a slowly evolving core transport layer and a rapidly evolving services layer in their network architectures. The emergence of broadband in the mass market will challenge physical designers to use innovative physical technologies in large switches to realize the needed interconnects and to control power consumption and dissipation. Declining transmission costs and powerful database technologies will continue to push the trend toward fewer numbers of larger switches and increased utilization of network reconfiguration at the path and facilities level.<>