6. Telephone exchange architecture

6.1 Architecture of a digital switchboard

The digital automatic exchange is the structuring element of modern telecommunication networks. Its architecture therefore has the main characteristics of the general network.

The general telecommunications network is made up of three essential parts:

• the information transport network for communications between users ;

• the signalling network between elements of the transport network to establish communication channels between users;

• the operation-maintenance or network management network, whose role is to supervise network elements. Its essential function is to detect any network element failures and order...