Lucent 5ESS: one of the most successful and popular digital telephone exchanges
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Platform details
The Lucent 5ESS is one of the most popular digital telephone exchanges of all time – at one point it serviced about half of the phone lines in the US, and it’s still used extensively today.
The 5ESS is built from three different modules. The Switching Module can handle thousands of telephone lines or hundreds of trunk connections – or a mix of the two – and Module Controllers use their own memory boards to perform call-handling actions.
Beyond that, each 5ESS has an Administrative Module holding the main processing board that manages the Lucent unit, alongside the hard drives that hold backups of the processing software. Then there’s the Communication Module, which is the central time switch that manages phone call assignments.
The 5ESS conventionally functions as a VCDX – or a Very Compact Digital eXchange – but sometimes it’s used as a larger PBX, too. It’s a versatile unit: it can simultaneously tackle wireless, IN, Gateway Exchange and Local-Toll services, it supports wireline and wireless operations, and its design complies with all relevant standards and protocols.
Specifications
The Lucent 5ESS has 3 types of modules:
| Switching Module (SM) | Each Lucent 5ESS SM handles a large number of telephone lines (up to a few thousand) trunks (a few hundred), and/or a combination of the two. Each of them has their own processors performing most call handling processes through its memory boards. |
| Administrative Module (AM) | The AM Module contains the central computers. The 5ESS It is a dual processor mini mainframe computer of the AT&T 3B series, running UNIX-RTR. The AM also contains the hard drives and tape drives used to load and backup the central and peripheral processor software and translations.
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| Communication Module (CM) – | The Communications Modules is the central time-divided switch of the system/exchange. The Switching Module is used in the majority of equipment and the 5ESS runs on a Time-Space-Time (TST) topology in which the Time-Slot-Interchangers (TSI) in the Switching Modules (SM) assign each phone call to a time slot for routing through the CM. |
TXO is a leading authority on networking parts availability and our breadth of experience and extensive product knowledge allow us to help our customers maintain their networks with platforms such as the Lucent 5ESS.
TXO is a completely independent re-seller and has no association with Lucent or related organisations.
