View source for 5ESS Switching System

{{Short description|Telephone electronic switching system}}
{{no footnotes|date = June 2019}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2022}}
{{Use American English|date=September 2024}}

[[File:Lucent 5ESS GSM Mobile Switching Centre.jpg|thumb|5ESS used in a mobile telephone network]]

The '''5ESS Switching System''' is a [[Class-5 telephone switch|Class 5]] telephone [[electronic switching system]] developed by [[Western Electric]] for the [[AT&T Corporation|American Telephone and Telegraph Company]] (AT&T) and the [[Bell System]] in the United States. It came into service in 1982 and the last unit was produced in 2003.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Western Electric/Lucent Modern Telephone Switching Systems|url=https://telephoneworld.org/telephone-switching-systems/western-electric-lucent-modern-telephone-switching-systems/|access-date=2022-01-27|website=Telephone World|language=en-US}}</ref>

==History==
The 5ESS came to market as the Western Electric No. 5 ESS. It commenced service in [[Seneca, Illinois]] on March 25, 1982, and was destined to replace the [[Number One Electronic Switching System]] (1ESS and 1AESS) and other electromechanical systems in the 1980s and 1990s. The 5ESS was also used as a [[Class-4 telephone switch]] or as a hybrid Class 4/Class 5 switch in markets too small for the [[4ESS]]. Approximately half of all US [[telephone exchange|central offices]] are served by 5ESS switches. The 5ESS was also exported, and manufactured outside the US under license.<ref name="Ukraine_Export">{{cite news |last1=Vandewater |first1=Bob |title=Ukraine Gets AT&T Phone Switch |url=https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1993/02/20/ukraine-gets-att-phone-switch/62467317007/ |access-date=18 January 2024 |work=The Oklahoman |date=1993-02-20}}</ref>

The 5ESS–2000 version, introduced in the 1990s, increased the capacity of the switching module (SM), with more peripheral modules and more optical links per SM to the communications module (CM).  A follow-on version, the 5ESS–R/E, was in development during the late 1990s but did not reach market. Another version was the 5E–XC.{{citation needed|date = June 2019}}

The 5ESS technology was transferred to the AT&T Network Systems division upon the 1984 breakup of the Bell System. The division was divested by AT&T in 1996 as [[Lucent Technologies]],<ref>{{Cite web|title=History of Lucent Technologies Inc.|url=http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/lucent-technologies-inc-history/|access-date=2022-01-27|website=FundingUniverse}}</ref> and after becoming [[Alcatel-Lucent]] in 2006,<ref>{{cite web|title=Alcatel and Lucent Technologies to Merge and Form World's Leading Communication Solutions Provider|url=http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal/NewsReleases/DetailLucent?LMSG_CABINET=Docs_and_Resource_Ctr&LMSG_CONTENT_FILE=News_Releases_LU_2006/LU_News_Article_007765.xml|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081225233306/http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal/NewsReleases/DetailLucent?LMSG_CABINET=Docs_and_Resource_Ctr&LMSG_CONTENT_FILE=News_Releases_LU_2006%2FLU_News_Article_007765.xml|archive-date=2008-12-25|publisher=Alcatel-lucent.com}}</ref> it was acquired by [[Nokia]] in 2016.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Tonner|first=Andrew|date=2016-01-06|title=Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent Finally Seal the Deal|url=https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/01/06/nokia-and-alcatel-lucent-finally-seal-the-deal.aspx|access-date=2022-01-27|website=The Motley Fool|language=en}}</ref>

The 5ESS switch is still in widespread use in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) in the United States and elsewhere, but they are being replaced with more modern packet switching systems. 5ESS switches in service in 2021 also included several operated by the United States Navy.<ref>{{Cite web|date=March 15, 2021|title=DEPT OF DEFENSE Issues Federal contract notice for " DG11 - REPAIR AND EXCHANGE SERVICE FOR LUCENT 5ESS "|url=http://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A655147244/STND?u=wikipedia&sid=ebsco&xid=150b1867|url-access=registration|access-date=27 January 2022|website=US Official News|via=Gale OneFile}}</ref>

== Architecture ==
The 5ESS switch has three main types of modules: the '''Administrative Module''' (AM) contains the central computers; the '''Communications Module''' (CM) is the central time-divided switch of the system; and the '''Switching Module''' (SM) makes up the majority of the equipment in most exchanges. The SM performs multiplexing, analog and digital coding, and other work to interface with external equipment.  Each has a controller, a small computer with duplicated [[CPU]]s and memories, like most common equipment of the exchange, for redundancy.  [[Distributed system]]s lessen the load on the Central Administrative Module (AM) or main computer.{{citation needed|date = June 2019}}

Power for all circuitry is distributed as –48 VDC (nominal), and converted locally to logic levels or telephone signals.{{citation needed|date = June 2019}}

===Switching Module===
Each Switching Module (SM) handles several hundred to a few thousand telephone lines or several hundred [[Trunking#Telecommunications|trunk]]s or combination thereof. Each has its own [[CPU|processors]], also called Module Controllers, which perform most [[Signaling (telecommunications)|call handling processes]], using their own [[computer memory|memory]] boards. Originally the peripheral processors were to be [[Intel 8086]], but those proved inadequate and the system was introduced with [[Motorola 68000]] series processors. The name of the cabinet that houses this equipment was changed at the same time from Interface Module to Switching Module.{{citation needed|date = June 2019}}

Peripheral units are on shelves in the SM. In most exchanges the majority are Line Units (LU) and Digital Line Trunk Units (DLTU). Each SM has Local Digital Service Units (LDSU) to provide various services to lines and trunks in the SM, including tone generation and detection. Global Digital Service Units (GDSU) provide less-frequently used services to the entire exchange. The Time Slot Interchanger (TSI) in the SM uses random-access memory to delay each speech sample to fit into a time slot which will carry its call through the exchange to another or, in some cases, the same SM.

[[T-carrier]] spans are terminated, originally one per card but in later models usually two, in Digital Line Trunk Units (DLTU) which concentrate their [[DS0]] channels into the TSI.  These may serve either interoffice trunks or, using Integrated [[Subscriber Loop Carrier]], subscriber lines. Higher-capacity [[Digital Signal 3|DS3]] signals can also have their DS0 signals switched in Digital Network Unit [[SONET]] (DNUS) units, without demultiplexing them into [[Digital Signal 1|DS1]]. Newer SM's have DNUS (DS3) and Optical OIU interfaces (OC12) with a large amount of capacity.

SMs have Dual Link Interface (DLI) cards to connect them by [[multi-mode optical fiber]]s to the Communications Modules for time-divided switching to other SMs. These links may be short, for example within the same building, or may connect to SMs in remote locations. Calls among the lines and trunks of a particular SM needn't go through CM, and an SM located remotely can act as [[distributed switching]], administered from the central AM. Each SM has two Module Controller/[[Time Slot Interchange]] (MCTSI) circuits for redundancy.

In contrast to [[Nortel]]'s [[DMS-100]] which uses individual [[line card]]s with a [[codec]], most lines are on two-stage [[analog electronics|analog]] space-division concentrators or ''Line Units'', which connect as many as 512 lines, as needed, to the 8 ''Channel card''s that each contain 8 codecs, and to high-level service circuits for ringing and testing. Both stages of concentration are included on the same GDX (Gated Diode Access) board. Each GDX board serves 32 lines, 16 A links and 32 B links. [[Limited availability]] saves money with incompletely filled matrixes. The Line Unit can have up to 16 GDX boards connecting to the channel boards by shared B links, but in offices with heavier traffic for lines a lesser number of GDX boards are equipped.

[[ISDN]] lines are served by individual line cards in an ISLU (Integrated Services Line Unit).

===Administrative Module===
The Administrative Module (AM) is a dual-processor mini [[main frame computer]] of the AT&T [[3B series computers|3B series]], running [[UNIX-RTR]].  AM contains the hard drives and tape drives used to load and backup the central and peripheral processor software and translations.  Disk drives were originally several 300 megabyte [[Storage Module Device|SMD]] multi-platter units in a separate frame. Now they consist of several redundant multi-gigabyte [[SCSI]] drives that each reside on a card.  [[Magnetic tape data storage|Tape drives]] were originally half inch open reel at 6250 [[bit]]s per inch, which were replaced in the early 1990s with 4&nbsp;mm [[Digital Audio Tape]] cassettes.

The Administrative Module is built on the [[3B21D]] platform and is used to load software to the many [[microprocessors]] throughout the switch and to provide high speed control functions.  It provides messaging and interface to control terminals.  The AM of a 5ESS consists of the 3B20x or 3B21D processor unit, including I/O, disks, and tape drive units.  Once the 3B21D has loaded the software into the 5ESS and the switch is activated, [[packet switching]] takes place without further action by the 3B21D, except for billing functions requiring records to be transferred to disk for storage.  Because the processor has duplex hardware, one active side, and one standby side, a failure of one side of the processor will not necessarily result in a loss of switching.

===Communication Module===
The Communications Module (CM) forms the central time switch of the exchange.  5ESS uses a time-space-time (TST) topology in which the [[Time-Slot-Interchanger]]s (TSI) in the Switching Modules assign each phone call to a time slot for routing through the CM.

CMs perform time-divided switching and are provided in pairs; each module (cabinet) belonging to Office Network and Timing Complex (ONTC) 0 or 1, roughly corresponding to the switch planes of other designs.  Each SM has four optical fiber links, two connecting to a CM belonging to ONTC 0 and two to ONTC 1.  Each optical link consists of two multimode optical fibers with ST connectors to plug into transceivers plugged into backplane wiring at each end.  CMs receive time-multiplexed signals on the receive fiber and send them to the appropriate destination SM on the send fiber.

===Very Compact Digital Exchange===
The Very Compact Digital Exchange (VCDX) was developed with the 5ESS-2000, and marketed to mostly non-Bell telephone companies as an inexpensive, effective way to offer [[ISDN]] and other digital services in an analog [[switching center]].  This avoided the capital expense of retrofitting the entire analog switch into a digital one to serve all of the switch's lines when many wouldn't require it and would remain [[Plain old telephone service|POTS]] lines.

An example would be the (former) GTE/Verizon [[Class-5 telephone switch]], the [[GTD-5 EAX]].  Like the [[Western Electric]] [[1ESS]]/1AESS, it served mostly medium to large wire centers.

The standalone VCDX was also capable of serving as a switch for very small wire centers (a CDX- [[Community dial office]]) of fewer than ~400 lines. However, for small wire centers, 400-4000 lines, that function was usually served by RSM's, a 5ESS "Remote SM", ORM's or Wired ORM's.
The RSM is controlled by T1 lines connected to a DLTU unit. The first 2 T1's are the control of the RSM and are necessary for any Recent Changes to take place. RSM's can have up to 10 T1's. There can be multiple RSM's in an office. An ORM can be fed via direct fiber or via coax thus called Wired ORM's. An RSM or ORM can have many of the same peripheral units that are part of a full 5ESS switch. An RSM has a limited distance and can serve parts of a larger metro area or rural offices. An ORM or wired ORM can be anywhere technically, and preferred over the RSM once the ORM became available. Both the RSM and ORM is often used as a Class-5 wire center for small to medium towns hosted from a 5ESS located in a larger city. The Wired ORM is connected via coax from a MUX unit and fed to a TRCU which converts the coax to connection to the DLI, There was also a two-mile ORM that was used when an office was broken out or took an area from another office. The distance on this was 2 miles from a host office and fed direct via fiber. As with any SM, the size is dictated by the number of time slots needed for each peripheral unit. ORM's are linked with DS3, RSM's are linked with T1 lines.
The VCDX was also used as a large [[private branch exchange]] (PBX).
Small communities of less than 400 lines or so were also provided with SLC-96 units or Anymedia units.

The standalone VCDX has a single Switching Module, and no Communications Module.  Its [[Sun Microsystems]] [[SPARC]] [[workstation]] runs the [[UNIX]]-based [[Solaris (operating system)]] that executes a [[3B series computers|3B20/21D]] processor [[MERT]] [[Operating system|OS]] [[emulator|emulation]] system, acting as the VCDX's Administrative Module. The VCDX uses the [[Telephone exchange|CO]]'s normal telephone power sources (which are very large [[uninterruptible power supply|uninterruptible power supplies]]), and has connections to the CO [[Digital cross connect system]] for [[T-carrier|T1]] access, etc.

===Signaling===
The 5ESS has two different signaling architectures: [[Common Network Interface (CNI) Ring]] and [[Packet Switching]] Unit (PSU)-based [[Signalling System No. 7|SS7 Signaling]].

== Software ==
{{unreferenced section|date=April 2025}}

The development effort for 5ESS required five thousand employees, producing 100 million lines of system source code, mostly in the [[C (programming language)|C language]], with 100 million lines of [[header files]] and [[makefile]]s. Evolution of the system took place over 20 years, while three releases were often being developed simultaneously, each taking about three years to complete. The 5ESS was originally U.S.-only and the international sales resulted in a complete development system and team, in parallel to the U.S. version.<ref>{{cite web |date=July 1985 |title=Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 64, No. 6 (Part 2) – 5ESS Switch Special Issue |url=https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/magazines/Bell_System_Technical_Journal/BSTJ_V64N06_198507_Part_2.pdf |access-date=2025-09-24 |website=Bell System Technical Journal (Bitsavers) |publisher=AT&T Bell Laboratories |type=PDF}}</ref>

The development systems were Unix-based mainframe systems. There were around 15 of these systems active at the peak. There were development machines, simulator machines, and build machines, etc.  Developers' desktops were multi-window terminals (versions of the [[Blit (computer terminal)|Blit]] developed by [[Bell Labs]]) until the mid 1990s, when [[SUN workstation|Sun workstations]] were deployed.  Developers continued to login into the servers for their work, using [[X Window System|X11]] on their workstations as a multi-window environment.<ref>{{cite web |date=1998 |title=An Empirical Study of Parallel and Sequential Development in a Large Software System |url=https://users.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/work/papers/icse98ewpp.pdf |access-date=2025-09-24 |website=ICSE ’98 Workshop Papers |publisher=University of Texas at Austin |type=PDF}}</ref>

Source code management was based on [[Source Code Control System|SCCS]] and utilized "#feature" lines to separate source code between releases, between features specific to US or Intl, and the like. Customisation around the [[Vi (text editor)|vi]] and [[Emacs]] text editors allowed developers to work with the appropriate view of a file, hiding the parts that were not applicable to their current project.<ref>{{cite web |date=2000 |title=Identifying Risky Software Changes |url=https://mockus.org/papers/bltj13.pdf |access-date=2025-09-24 |website=Bell Labs Technical Journal |publisher=Lucent Technologies |type=PDF}}</ref>

The change request system used the SCCS MR to create named change sets, tied into the IMR (initial modification request) system which had purely numeric identifiers.  An MR name was created with subsystem prefix, IMR number, MR sequence characters, and a character for the release or "load".  So, for the gr (generic retrofit) subsystem, the first MR created for the 2371242 IMR, destined for the 'F' load, would be gr2371242aF.<ref>{{cite web |date=2001 |title=Toward Understanding the Rhetoric of Small Source Code Changes |url=https://users.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/education/382c/p6.pdf |access-date=2025-09-24 |website=UT Austin Technical Reports |publisher=University of Texas at Austin |type=PDF}}</ref>

The build system used a simple mechanism of build configuration that would cause makefile generation to occur.  The system always built everything, but used checksum results to decide if a file had actually changed, before updating the build output directory tree.  This provided a huge reduction in build time when a core library or header was being edited.  A developer could add values to an enum, but if that did not change the build output, then subsequent dependencies on that output would not have to be relinked or libraries built.

==OAMP==
{{Main|Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning}}
The system is administered through an assortment of [[teletypewriter]] "channels", also called the [[system console]], such as the TEST channel and the Maintenance channel. Typically [[provisioning (telecommunications)|provisioning]] is done either through a [[command line interface]] (CLI) called RCV:APPTEXT, or through the menu-driven {{Not a typo|RCV:MENU,APPRC}} program. RCV stands for Recent Change/Verification, and can be accessed through the [[Switching Control Center System]]. Most service orders, however, are administered through the [[Recent Change Memory Administration Center]] (RCMAC).  In the international market, this terminal interface has localization to provide locale-specific language and command name variations on the screen and printer output.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fuhrer |first=P. T. |last2=Gitten |first2=L. J. |last3=Newman |first3=B. A. |last4=Snyder |first4=B. E. |date=July 1985 |title=The 5ESS switching system: Operations, administration, and maintenance capabilities |url=https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985ATTTJ..64.1523F/abstract |journal=AT&T Technical Journal |language=en |volume=64 |issue=6 |pages=1523–1536 |doi=10.1002/j.1538-7305.1985.tb00285.x |issn=1538-7305}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[PRX (telephony)]] – an earlier switch acquired by AT&T in Europe

==References==
{{reflist}}
*{{cite journal|doi=10.1002/j.1538-7305.1985.tb00276.x|title=The 5ESSS witching System: Introduction|year=1985|last1=Martersteck|first1=K. E.|last2=Spencer|first2=A. E.|journal=AT&T Technical Journal|volume=64|issue=6|pages=1305–1314|s2cid=33916439}}

==External links==
* [http://www.beatriceco.com/bti/porticus/bell/pdf/bell_labs_journals/bell_labs_technical_journal_apr-june_2000.pdf Evolution of Switching Architecture to Support Voice Telephony over ATM] by Judith R. McGoogan, Joseph E. Merritt, and Yogesh J. Dave. Extending 5ESS–2000. [[Bell Labs Technical Journal]], April–May 2000
* [https://www.scribd.com/doc/20938555/Switch-Basics-5ESS Switch Basics 5ESS] (Scribd.com)

{{Telephone Switches}}

[[Category:Alcatel-Lucent]]
[[Category:Telephone exchange equipment]]