Second: that it is too expensive, and that the necessary first cost could not be justified.
Third: that it is too inflexible and could not adapt itself to special kinds of service.
Fourth: that it is all wrong from the subscribers" point of view as the public will not tolerate "doing its own operating."
_Complexity._ This first objection as to complexity, and consequent alleged unreliability and lack of economy should be carefully a.n.a.lyzed.
It too often happens that a new invention is cast into outer darkness by those whose opinions carry weight by such words as "it cannot work; it is too complicated." Fortunately for the world, the patience and fort.i.tude which men must possess before they can produce meritorious, though intricate inventions, are usually sufficient to prevent their being crushed by any such offhand condemnation, and the test of time and service is allowed to become the real criterion.
It would be difficult to find an art that has gone forward as rapidly as telephony. Within its short life of a little over thirty years it has grown from the phase of trifling with a mere toy to an affair of momentous importance to civilization. There has been a tendency, particularly marked during recent years, toward greater complexity; and probably every complicated new system or piece of apparatus has been roundly condemned, by those versed in the art as it was, as being unable to survive on account of its complication.
To ill.u.s.trate: A prominent telephone man, in arguing against the nickel-in-the-slot method of charging for telephone service once said, partly in jest, "The Lord never intended telephone service to be given in that way." This, while a little off the point, is akin to the sweeping aside of new telephone systems on the sole ground that they are complicated. These are not real reasons, but rather convenient ways of disposing of vexing problems with a minimum amount of labor. Important questions lying at the very root of the development of a great industry may not be put aside permanently in this offhand way. The Lord has never, so far as we know, indicated just what his intentions were in the matter of nickel service; and no one has ever shown yet just what degree of complexity will prevent a telephone system from working.
It is safe to say that, if other things are equal, the simpler a machine is, the better; but simplicity, though desirable, is not all-important.
Complexity is warranted if it can show enough advantages.
If one takes a narrow view of the development of things mechanical and electrical, he will say that the trend is toward simplicity. The mechanic in designing a machine to perform certain functions tries to make it as simple as possible. He designs and re-designs, making one part do the work of two and contriving schemes for reducing the complexity of action and form of each remaining part. His whole trend is away from complication, and this is as it should be. Other things being equal, the simpler the better. A broad view, however, will show that the arts are becoming more and more complicated. Take the implements of the art of writing: The typewriter is vastly more complicated than the pen, whether of steel or quill, yet most of the writing of today is done on the typewriter, and is done better and more economically. The art of printing affords even more striking examples.
In telephony, while every effort has been made to simplify the component parts of the system, the system itself has ever developed from the simple toward the complex. The adoption of the multiple switchboard, of automatic ringing, of selective ringing on party lines, of measured-service appliances, and of automatic systems have all const.i.tuted steps in this direction. The adoption of more complicated devices and systems in telephony has nearly always followed a demand for the performance by the machinery of the system of additional or different functions. As in animal and plant life, so in mechanics--the higher the organism functionally the more complex it becomes physically.
Greater intricacy in apparatus and in methods is warranted when it is found desirable to make the machine perform added functions. Once the functions are determined upon, then the whole trend of the development of the machine for carrying them out should be toward simplicity. When the machine has reached its highest stage of development some one proposes that it be required to do something that has. .h.i.therto been done manually, or by a separate machine, or not at all. With this added function a vast added complication may come, after which, if it develops that the new function may with economy be performed by the machine, the process of simplification again begins, the whole design finally taking on an indefinable elegance which appears only when each part is so made as to be best adapted in composition, form, and strength to the work it is to perform.
Achievements in the past teach us that a machine may be made to do almost anything automatically if only the time, patience, skill, and money be brought to bear. This is also true of a telephone system. The primal question to decide is, what functions the system is to perform within itself, automatically, and what is to be done manually or with manual aid. Sometimes great complications are brought into the system in an attempt to do something which may very easily and cheaply be done by hand. Cases might be pointed out in which fortunes and life-works have been wasted in perfecting machines for which there was no real economic need. It is needless to cite cases where the reverse is true. The matter of wisely choosing the functions of the system is of fundamental importance. In choosing these the question of complication is only one of many factors to be considered.
One of the strongest arguments against intricacy in telephone apparatus is its greater initial cost, its greater cost of maintenance, and its liability to get out of order. Greater complexity of apparatus usually means greater first cost, but it does not necessarily mean greater cost of up-keep or lessened reliability. A dollar watch is more simple than an expensive one. The one, however, does its work pa.s.sably and is thrown away in a year or so; the other does its work marvelously well and may last generations, being handed down from father to son. Merely reducing the number of parts in a machine does not necessarily mean greater reliability. Frequently the attempt to make one part do several diverse things results in such a sacrifice in the simplicity of action of that part as to cause undue strain, or wear, or unreliable action. Better results may be attained by adding parts, so that each may have a comparatively simple thing to do.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY TYPICAL CHARGING OUTFIT AT DAWSON, GEORGIA]
The stage of development of an art is a factor in determining the degree of complexity that may be allowed in the machinery of that art. A linotype machine, if constructed by miracle several hundred years ago, would have been of no value to the printer"s art then. The skill was not available to operate and maintain it, nor was the need of the public sufficiently developed to make it of use. Similarly the automatic telephone exchange would have been of little value thirty years ago. The knowledge of telephone men was not sufficiently developed to maintain it, telephone users were not sufficiently numerous to warrant it, and the public was not sufficiently trained to use it. Industries, like human beings, must learn to creep before they can walk.
Another factor which must be considered in determining the allowable degree of complexity in a telephone system is the character of the labor available to care for and manage it. Usually the conditions which make for unskilled labor also lend themselves to the use of comparatively simple systems. Thus, in a small village remote from large cities the complexity inherent in a common-battery multiple switchboard would be objectionable. The village would probably not afford a man adequately skilled to care for it, and the size of the exchange would not warrant the expense of keeping such a man. Fortunately no such switchboard is needed. A far simpler device, the plain magneto switchboard--so simple that the girl who manipulates it may also often care for its troubles--is admirably adapted to the purpose. So it is with the automatic telephone system; even its most enthusiastic advocate would be foolish indeed to contend that for all places and purposes it was superior to the manual.
These remarks are far from being intended as a plea for complex telephone apparatus and systems; every device, every machine, and every system should be of the simplest possible nature consistent with the functions it has to perform. They are rather a protest against the broadcast condemnation of complex apparatus and systems just because they are complicated, and without regard to other factors. Such condemnation is detrimental to the progress of telephony. Where would the printing art be today if the linotype, the cylinder press, and other modern printing machinery of marvelous intricacy had been put aside on account of the fact that they were more complicated than the printing machinery of our forefathers?
That the automatic telephone system is complex, exceedingly complex, cannot be denied, but experience has amply proven that its complexity does not prevent it from giving reliable service, nor from being maintained at a reasonable cost.
_Expense._ The second argument against the automatic--that it is too expensive--is one that must be a.n.a.lyzed before it means anything. It is true that for small and medium-sized exchanges the total first cost of the central office and subscribers" station equipment, is greater than that for manual exchanges of corresponding sizes. The prices at which various sizes of automatic exchange equipments may be purchased vary, however, almost in direct proportion to the number of lines, whereas in manual equipment the price per line increases very rapidly as the number of lines increases. From this it follows that for very large exchanges the cost of automatic apparatus becomes as low, and may be even lower than for manual. Roughly speaking the cost of telephones and central-office equipment for small exchanges is about twice as great for automatic as for manual, and for very large exchanges, of about 10,000 lines, the cost of the two for switchboards and telephones is about equal.
For all except the largest exchanges, therefore, the greater first cost of automatic apparatus must be put down as one of the factors to be weighed in making the choice between automatic and manual, this factor being less and less objectionable as the size of the equipment increases and finally disappearing altogether for very large equipments. Greater first cost is, of course, warranted if the fixed charges on the greater investment are more than offset by the economy resulting. The automatic screw machine, for instance, costs many times more than the hand screw machine, but it has largely displaced the hand machine nevertheless.
_Flexibility._ The third argument against the automatic telephone system--its flexibility--is one that only time and experience has been able to answer. Enough time has elapsed and enough experience has been gained, however, to disprove the validity of this argument. In fact, the great flexibility of the automatic system has been one of its surprising developments. No sooner has the statement been made that the automatic system could not do a certain thing than forthwith it has done it. It was once quite clear that the automatic system was not practicable for party-line selective ringing; yet today many automatic systems are working successfully with this feature; the selection between the parties on a line being accomplished with just as great certainty as in manual systems. Again it has seemed quite obvious that the automatic system could not hope to cope with the reverting call problem, _i. e._, enabling a subscriber on a party line to call back to reach another subscriber on the same line; yet today the automatic system may do this in a way that is perhaps even more satisfactory than the way in which it is done in multiple manual switchboards. It is true that the automatic system has not done away with the toll operator and it probably never will be advantageous to require it to do so for the simple reason that the work of the toll operator in recording the connections and in bringing together the subscribers is a matter that requires not only accuracy but judgment, and the latter, of course, no machine can supply.
It is probable also that the private branch-exchange operator will survive in automatic systems. This is not because the automatic system cannot readily perform the switching duties, but the private branch-exchange operator has other duties than the mere building up and taking down of connections. She is, as it were, a door-keeper guarding the telephone door of a business establishment; like the toll operator she must be possessed of judgment and of courtesy in large degree, neither of which can be supplied by machinery.
In respect to toll service and private branch-exchange service where, as just stated, operators are required on account of the nature of the service, the automatic system has again shown its adaptability and flexibility. It has shown its capability of working in harmony with manual switchboards, of whatever nature, and there is a growing tendency to apply automatic devices and automatic principles of operation to manual switchboards, whether toll or private branch or other kinds, even though the services of an operator are required, the idea being to do by machinery that portion of the work which a machine is able to do better or more economically than a human being.
_Att.i.tude of Public._ The att.i.tude of the public toward the automatic is one that is still open to discussion; at least there is still much discussion on it. A few years ago it did seem reasonable to suppose that the general telephone user would prefer to get his connection by merely asking for it rather than to make it himself by "spelling" it out on the dial of his telephone instrument. We have studied this point carefully in a good many different communities and it is our opinion that the public finds no fault with being required to make its own connections.
To our minds it is proven beyond question that either the method employed in the automatic or that in the manual system is satisfactory to the public as long as good service results, and it is beyond question that the public may get this with either.
_Subscriber"s Station Equipment._ The added complexity of the mechanism at the subscriber"s station is in our opinion the most valid objection that can be urged against the automatic system as it exists today. This objection has, however, been much reduced by the greater simplicity and greater excellence of material and workmanship that is employed in the controlling devices in modern automatic systems. However, the automatic system must always suffer in comparison with the manual in respect of simplicity of the subscriber"s equipment. The simplest conceivable thing to meet all of the requirements of telephone service at a subscriber"s station is the modern common-battery manual telephone. The automatic telephone differs from this only in the addition of the mechanism for enabling the subscriber to control the central-office apparatus in the making of calls. From the standpoint of maintenance, simplicity at the subscriber"s station is, of course, to be striven for since the proper care of complex devices scattered all over a community is a much more serious matter than where the devices are centered at one point, as in the central office. Nevertheless, as pointed out, complexity is not fatal, and it is possible, as has been proven, to so design and construct the required apparatus in connection with the subscribers"
telephones as to make them subject to an amount of trouble that is not serious.
=Comparative Costs.= A comparison of the total costs of owning, operating, and maintaining manual and automatic systems usually results in favor of the automatic, except in small exchanges. This seems to be the consensus of opinion among those who have studied the matter deeply.
Although the automatic usually requires a larger investment, and consequently a larger annual charge for interest and depreciation, a.s.suming the same rates for each case, and although the automatic requires a somewhat higher degree of skill to maintain it and to keep it working properly than the manual, the elimination of operators or the reduction in their number and the consequent saving of salaries and contributory expenses together with other items of saving that will be mentioned serves to throw the balance in favor of the automatic.
The ease with which the automatic system lends itself to inter-office trunking makes feasible a greater subdivision of exchange districts into office districts and particularly makes it economical, where such would not be warranted in manual working. All this tends toward a reduction in average length of subscribers" lines and it seems probable that this possibility will be worked upon in the future, more than it has been in the past, to effect a considerable saving in the cost of the wire plant, which is the part of a telephone plant that shows least and costs most.
=Automatic vs. Manual.= Taking it all in all the question of automatic versus manual may not and can not be disposed of by a consideration of any single one of the alleged features of superiority or inferiority of either. Each must be looked at as a practical way of giving telephone service, and a decision can be reached only by a careful weighing of all the factors which contribute to economy, reliability, and general desirability from the standpoint of the public. Public sentiment must neither be overlooked nor taken lightly, since, in the final a.n.a.lysis, it is the public that must be satisfied.
=Methods of Operation.= In all of the automatic telephone systems that have achieved any success whatever, the selection of the desired subscriber"s line by the calling subscriber is accomplished by means of step-by-step mechanism at the central office, controlled by impulses sent or caused to be sent by the acts of the subscriber.
_Strowger System._ In the so-called Strowger system, manufactured by the Automatic Electric Company of Chicago, the subscriber, in calling, manipulates a dial by which the central-office switching mechanism is made to build up the connection he wants. The dial is moved as many times as there are digits in the called subscriber"s number and each movement sends a series of impulses to the central office corresponding in number respectively to the digits in the called subscriber"s number.
During each pause, except the last one, between these series of impulses, the central-office mechanism operates to shift the control of the calling subscriber"s line from one set of switching apparatus at the central office to another.
In case a four-digit number is being selected first, the movement of the dial by the calling subscriber will correspond to the thousands digit of the number being called, and the resulting movement of the central-office apparatus will continue the calling subscriber"s line through a trunk to a piece of apparatus capable of further extending his line toward the line terminals of the thousand subscribers whose numbers begin with the digit chosen. The next movement of the dial corresponding to the hundreds digit of the called number will operate this piece of apparatus to again extend the calling subscriber"s line through another trunk to apparatus representing the particular hundred in which the called subscriber"s number is. The third movement of the dial corresponding to the tens digit will pick out the group of ten containing the called subscriber"s line, and the fourth movement corresponding to the units digit will pick out and connect with the particular line called.
_Lorimer System._ In the Lorimer automatic system invented by the Lorimer Brothers, and now being manufactured by the Canadian Machine Telephone Company of Toronto, Canada, the subscriber sets up the number he desires complete by moving four levers on his telephone so that the desired number appears visibly before him. He then turns a handle and the central-office apparatus, under the control of the electrical conditions thus set up by the subscriber, establishes the connection. In this system, unlike the Strowger system, the controlling impulses are not caused by the movement of the subscriber"s apparatus in returning to its normal position after being set by the subscriber. Instead, the conditions established at the subscriber"s station by the subscriber in setting up the desired number, merely determine the point in the series of impulses corresponding to each digit at which the stepping impulses local to the central office shall cease, and in this way the proper number of impulses in the series corresponding to each digit is determined.
_Magnet- vs. Power-Driven Switches._ These two systems differ radically in another respect. In the Strowger system it is the electrical impulses initiated at the subscriber"s apparatus that actually cause the movement of the switching parts at the central office, these impulses energizing electromagnets which move the central-office switching devices a step at a time the desired number of steps. In the Lorimer system the switches are all power-driven and the impulses under the control of the subscriber"s instrument merely serve to control the application of this power to the various switching mechanisms. These details will be more fully dealt with in subsequent chapters.
_Multiple vs. Trunking._ It has been shown in the preceding portion of this work that the tendency in manual switchboard practice has been away from trunking between the various sections or positions of a board, and toward the multiple idea of operating, wherein each operator is able to complete the connection with any line in the same office without resorting to trunks or to the aid of other operators. Strangely enough the reverse has been true in the development of the automatic system. As long as the inventors tried to follow the most successful practice in manual working, failure resulted. The automatic systems of today are essentially trunking systems and while they all involve multiple connections in greater or less degree, all of them depend fundamentally upon the extending of the calling line by separate lengths until it finally reaches and connects with the called line.
_Grouping of Subscribers._ In this connection we wish to point out here two very essential features without which, so far as we are aware, no automatic telephone system has been able to operate successfully. The first of these is the division of the total number of lines in any office of the exchange into comparatively small groups and the employment of correspondingly small switch units for each group. Many of the early automatic systems that were proposed involved the idea of having each switch capable in itself of making connection with any line in the entire office. As long as the number of lines was small--one hundred or thereabouts--this might be all right, but where the lines number in the thousands, it is readily seen that the switches would be of prohibitive size and cost.
_Trunking between Groups._ This feature made necessary the employment of trunk connections between groups. By means of these the lines are extended a step at a time, first entering a large group of groups, containing the desired subscriber; then entering the smaller group containing that subscriber; and lastly entering into connection with the line itself. The carrying out of this idea was greatly complicated by the necessity of providing for many simultaneous connections through the switchboard. It was comparatively easy to accomplish the extension of one line through a series of links or trunks to another line, but it was not so easy to do this and still leave it possible for any other line to pick out and connect with any other idle line without interference with the first connection. A number of parallel paths must be provided for each possible connection. Groups of trunks are, therefore, provided instead of single trunks between common points to be connected. The subscriber who operates his instrument in making a call knows nothing of this and it is, of course, impossible for him to give any thought to the matter as to which one of the possible paths he shall choose. It was by a realization of these facts that the failures of the past were turned into the successes of the present. The subscriber by setting his signal transmitter was made to govern the action of the central-office apparatus in the selection of the proper _group_ of trunks. The group being selected, the central-office apparatus was made to act at once _automatically_ to pick out and connect with _the first idle trunk of such group_. Thus, we may say _that the subscriber by the act performed on his signal transmitter, voluntarily chooses the group of trunks, and immediately thereafter the central-office apparatus without the volition of the subscriber picks out the first idle one of this group of trunks so chosen_. This fundamental idea, so far as we are aware, underlies all of the successful automatic telephone-exchange systems. It provides for the possibility of many simultaneous connections through the switchboard, and it provides against the simultaneous appropriation of the same path by two or more calling subscribers and thus a.s.sures against interference in the choice of the paths.
_Outline of Action._ In order to ill.u.s.trate this point we may briefly outline the action of the Strowger automatic system in the making of a connection. a.s.sume that the calling subscriber desires a connection with a subscriber whose line bears the number 9,567. The subscriber in making the call will, by the first movement of his dial, transmit nine impulses over his line. This will cause the selective apparatus at the central office, that is at the time a.s.sociated with the calling subscriber"s line, to move its selecting fingers opposite a group of terminals representing the ends of a group of trunk lines leading to apparatus employed in connecting with the ninth thousand of the subscribers"
lines.
While the calling subscriber is getting ready to transmit the next digit, the automatic apparatus, without his volition, starts to pick out the first idle one of the group of trunks so chosen. Having found this it connects with it and the calling subscriber"s line is thus extended to another selective apparatus capable of performing the same sort of function in choosing the proper hundreds group.
In the next movement of his dial the calling subscriber will send five impulses. This will cause the last chosen selective switch to move its selective fingers opposite a group of terminals representing the ends of a group of trunks each leading to a switch that is capable of making connection with any one of the lines in the fifth hundred of the ninth thousand. Again during the pause by the subscriber, the switch that chose this group of trunks will start automatically to pick out and connect with the first idle one of them, and will thus extend the line to a selective switch that is capable of reaching the desired line, since it has access to all of the lines in the chosen hundred. The third movement of the dial sends six impulses and this causes this last chosen switch to move opposite the sixth group of ten terminals, so that there has now been chosen the nine hundred and fifty-sixth group of ten lines.
The final movement of the dial sends seven impulses and the last mentioned switch connects with the seventh line terminal in the group of ten previously chosen and the connection is complete, a.s.suming that the called line was not already engaged. If it had been found busy, the final switch would have been prevented from connecting with it by the electrical condition of certain of its contacts and the busy signal would have been transmitted back to the calling subscriber.
_Fundamental Idea._ This idea of subdividing the subscribers" lines in an automatic exchange, of providing different groups of trunks so arranged as to afford by combination a number of possible parallel paths between any two lines, of having the calling subscriber select, by the manipulation of his instrument, the proper group of trunks any one of which might be used to establish the connection he desires, and of having the central-office apparatus act automatically to choose and connect with an idle one in this chosen group, should be firmly grasped.
It appears, as we have said, in every successful automatic system capable of serving more than one small group of lines, and until it was evolved automatic telephony was not a success.
_Testing._ As each trunk is chosen and connected with, conditions are established, by means not unlike the busy test in multiple manual switchboards, which will guard that trunk and its a.s.sociated apparatus against appropriation by any other line or apparatus as long as it is held in use. Likewise, as soon as any subscriber"s line is put into use, either by virtue of a call being originated on it, or by virtue of its being connected with as a called line, conditions are automatically established which guard it against being connected with any other line as long as it is busy. These guarding conditions of both trunks and lines, as in the manual board, are established by making certain contacts, a.s.sociated with the trunks or lines, a.s.sume a certain electrical condition when busy that is different from their electrical condition when idle; but unlike the manual switchboard this different electrical condition does not act to cause a click in any one"s ear, but rather to energize or de-energize certain electromagnets which will establish or fail to establish the connection according to whether it is proper or improper to do so.
_Local and Inter-Office Trunks._ The groups of trunks that are used in building up connections between subscribers" lines may be local to the central office, or they may extend between different offices. The action of the two kinds of trunks, local or inter-office, is broadly the same.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE AUTOMATIC ELECTRIC COMPANY"S SYSTEM
Almost wherever automatic telephony is to be found--and its use is extensive and rapidly growing--the so-called Strowger system is employed. It is so named because it is the outgrowth of the work of Almon B. Strowger, an early inventor in the automatic telephone art.
That the system should bear the name of Strowger, however, gives too great prominence to his work and too little to that of the engineers of the Automatic Electric Company under the leadership of Alexander E.