Telecomms in Australia
These notes cover a few milestones
It was in 1901 that the telephone and
telegraph
administrations of each Australian state came
together to form the Postmaster General's Department
(PMG). Reorganisation in 1975 led to its renaming as Telecom
Australia or Telecom for short. In the early 1990s it
became Telstra.
Manual exchanges
The first telephone exchange opened in Melbourne,
in August 1880. Also among the first wave were
Brisbane (less than two months after Melbourne) and
Sydney (1881).
December 1991 saw the last of Australia's manually
operated exchanges (at Wanaaring, NSW ).
Electronic switching
Australian telephone switching first made use of
electronic techniques in the mid 1970s, when
computers were added to major trunk exchanges in
Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Known as Metaconta
10C , these exchanges used reed-relay crosspoint
switches to route calls, and - for manual trunk
operators - provided much more sophisticated
facilities.
The crossbar hybrid: ARE-11
Some crossbar exchanges have also been updated by
the addition of electronic equipment. The registers,
and some of the markers, are replaced by electronic
components on printed circuit boards. A small central
computer, dividing its time between them, controls
their operations. ARF crossbar exchanges which have been modified in
this way are called ARE-11 exchanges. First installed in Australia in
1977, ARE-11 exchanges work better than the original crossbar exchanges
and provide some of the telephone services available on AXE exchanges
(see below). Now a major part of the switching network, ARE-11 exchanges
are likely to remain so well into the next century.
The fully electronic exchange: AXE
The first fully dedicated computer-controlled
exchange in Australia opened at Melbourne's Endeavour
Hills in 1981. Designed by Ericsson Communications
Pty Ltd, it was the first of many AXE exchanges.
Adapted from http://www.telstra.com.au/classroom/sec_3_1.htm