1959 - History of Ericsson - History of Ericsson

Crossbar Exchange
Installed on Large
Passenger Steamer
On the new 38,645-ton passenger
steamer, T/S Rotterdam, of the Dutch
America Line, which recently made
her maiden voyage from Rotterdam
to New York, almost every passenger
on board has an ivory-white L M
Ericsson telephone for his or her own
use.
The instruments are connected to
what is believed to be the world's
first ship-borne automatic crossbar
telephone exchange. With a capacity
of 650 extensions, the exchange was
delivered by L M Ericsson and installed
by its subsidiary company in Holland.
Communications between officers
and crew are passed through a
separate 80-line automatic switchboard.
L M Ericsson also supplied
emergency telephones for the ship's
lifts and a master clock system with
over 100 slave clocks. T/S Rotterdam,
built for 1,456 passengers by
Rotterdamsche Droogdok Mij. N. V.
in Rotterdam, is driven by two steam
turbines each developing 17.500 h.p.
(Above) Chief Electrician Yanderwal inspecting
a crossbar switch in T S Rotterdam's automatic
switchboard
(Right) The Telephone and Electrical Industries
Ltd. factory, Sydney, one of the two
locations at which crossbar is to be manufactured.
132
Crossbar Standard Australian System
Large New L M Ericsson Market
The Australian Post Office has approved
the crossbar system offered
by L M Ericsson as the new standard
system of automatic telephony in
Australia. The system is based on the
crossbar switch developed by the
Swedish Telecommunications Administration.
The APO decision must be
regarded as an outstanding success
for Swedish enterprise and technology,
since the Australian market has
hitherto been dominated by British
telephone companies. The system will
be manufactured on licence in Australia
under an agreement concluded
between L M Ericsson and two
Australian manufacturers, Telephone
and Electrical Industries Ltd. and
Standard Telephones & Cables Pty.
Ltd. Production will start as soon as
the necessary arrangements have
been completed at the two factories.
In the meantime deliveries of crossbar
equipment will be made from
L M Ericsson factories in Sweden.
After several years of thorough
study APO has come to the conclusion
that this crossbar system best
solves the problems associated not
only with rapidly expanding city networks,
but also with the conversion
of rural systems and the introduction
of long distance subscriber dialling.
APO's evaluation of the suitability
of the crossbar system for Australian
conditions is reinforced by the long
experience of its operation and maintenance
gained by the Swedish Telecommunications
Administration. The
reasons have been partly presented in
articles in "The Telecommunication
Journal of Australia", which have
met with a considerable interest in
international telephone circles.
The suitability of the system for
Australian conditions has been proved
also by the results obtained with
two small crossbar exchanges of 600
lines each installed by L M Ericsson
on trial in Sydney and Melbourne
in 1957. This year APO has placed
orders for two more crossbar exchanges
to be installed at Petersham
(2,800 lines) and Toowoomba (6,300
lines).
The Australian market - comprising,
as it does, a whole continent - is a
very important one. The present population
numbers 10 million and is
rapidly growing. The telephone network
is being expanded at the rate
of 100,000 lines a year.
Expansion of Rangoon
Telephone System
An order for expansion of the Rangoon
telephone network has been received
from the Burmese government,
comprising automatic exchange equipment
for 4,300 lines and the construction
of a new 1,000-line exchange
to a total value of some 6 million
kronor.
On the completion of these installations
Rangoon will have one of the
most modern telephone systems in
Asia, with a total of 13,600 Ericsson
crossbar lines. The conversion of the
Rangoon network to automatic operation
was entrusted to Ericsson in
1954, initially for 8,300 lines which
are now installed.