The present invention has for its subject a system of connecting telephone subscribers, notably a private type system, based on a digital time-division multiplex switch.
The introduction of increasing numbers of telecommunication devices adapted to be connected to the lines of a telephone switch in order to provide for communication of information in highly diversified forms employing significantly different procedures implies the provision of switches that are both easily adaptable to the needs of users and also able to ensure a uniformization of information needed for it to be switched by the switching network of the switch through which they pass and possibly for transmission via communication networks, in particular the public telephone network.
This implies in the first place that the information transmitted by the telecommunication devices of users directly connected to a switch and by communication networks to which the switch is connected, which are provided in forms and with procedures specifically adapted to these devices or equipment, are formatted at the level of the junctors which receive them in the switch so as to be presented in a form acceptable by the switching network of the switch.
This implies secondly that signalling received in possibly extremely diverse forms from the devices and communication network via the junctors of the switch so that the latter can act on them are also formatted at these junctors so that they can be easily acted on by the internal control system of said switch.
A solution employed in large switches with a control system comprising a number of processors consists in assigning processors to the various junctors and to have the junctor processors communicate with those of the control system through the intermediary of one or more connecting networks internal to the switch with information exchanged in a way that is standardized for each connecting network.
A solution of this kind has the disadvantage that it is complicated and too costly for the smallest capacity switches, where the volume of traffic to handle is less and in particular does not justify the use of a large number of processors.