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34-499: Exploratory development on digital technology, common for the SL-1 (PBX) and the DMS (public switch) product lines, began in 1969 at Northern Telecom, while R&D activities related to the SL-1 started in 1971. SL stands for Stored Logic. The original products were developed in a Bell-Northern Research developed proprietary toolset and language, similar to Pascal called Protel , and ran without

68-573: A Punch-down block or a Modular connector called a TELADAPT plug (or socket) which is Nortel parlance for phone connector. The Nortel Meridian 1 can be upgraded to support VoIP in two forms: The introduction of Release 3.0 for the Meridian 1, otherwise known as the CS1000 Release 3.0 also provides an upgrade path for the existing customer base to upgrade a Meridian 1 to an IP-PBX Bell-Northern Research Bell-Northern Research ( BNR )

102-462: A 2-wire full duplex 512kHz time-division multiplexing digital link. Each digital telephone and associated data terminal is assigned a separate Terminal Number (TN) in the system database, giving a total of 32 addressable units per card. Extracts from Nortel IP Telephony Time Compression Multiplexing (TCM) is the standard communication protocol used by Nortel digital telephones on a 2-wire tip and ring circuit. Each digital phone line terminates at

136-470: A large group of small "United Carrier" companies that were subsequently swallowed up by Worldcom. Once the IEC layer was established, customer-specific releases could occur quarterly, whereas Telecom and Base programming was for baked-in code that only had infrequent, maintenance updates. Through the 1980s attention turned from pure hardware to software development. The BNR Toronto lab introduced Meridian Mail in

170-459: A noted authority on cryptography , and Robert Gaskins , who invented PowerPoint after leaving BNR, influenced in part by BNR's response to the very cumbersome presentation tools used by his department there. J.W.J. Williams, the inventor of Heapsort was also an influential figure in the development of digital switching. As part of its internal IT infrastructure, BNR also created an email system called COCOS (COrporate COmmunication System), and

204-534: A powerful relational database system called GERM (General Entity-Relationship Model). BNR also had labs in Maidenhead , England, Montreal , Quebec, Edmonton , Alberta, Wollongong , Australia, and Tokyo , Japan; as well as Atlanta , Georgia and Ann Arbor , Michigan. With the formation of Bell Canada Enterprises (later shortened to BCE ) in 1983 as the parent company of Bell Canada and Northern Telecom , BNR in Canada

238-411: A separate tool known as a spudger is used to remove small stray pieces of cut off wiring stuck within punch-down blocks. It is possible to insert wiring without the proper tool, but this requires great care to avoid damaging the connectors. For example, pushing a screwdriver down the middle of the block is a bad practice as it forces the two blades of the terminal post apart, leading to bad contacts. It

272-489: A single twisted pair of standard telephone wiring. When a Meridian digital telephone is equipped with the data option, an asynchronous ASCII terminal, or a PC acting as an asynchronous ASCII terminal, can be connected to the system through the digital telephone. Digital line cards are housed in the Intelligent Peripheral Equipment (IPE) Modules. Up to 16 cards are supported. The digital line card circuitry

306-583: A specific operating system . In the 1990s it was evolved onto VxWorks , a commercial real time embedded operating system, at which time the model numbers were evolved to add the letter C to the end of the option numbers. It was introduced by Northern Telecom in December 1974 at the USITA convention in San Francisco, with an original capacity from 100 to 7,600 lines, and became the first fully digital PBX announced on

340-581: A station port on a Digital Voice Card (DVC) in the PBX. The circuit interface operates by a transformer coupling which provides foreign voltage protection between the TCM loop and the digital line. The maximum length of a normal TCM loop is 300 m (1000 ft.) Minimum voltage at telephone 10 V DC and a TCM port should have between 15 and 20 V DC across the Tip and Ring with the phone disconnected. The port connection may be through

374-452: A very quick and easy way to connect wiring , as there is no stripping of insulation and no screws to loosen and tighten. Punch-down blocks are often used as patch panels , or as breakout boxes for PBX or other similar multi-line telephone systems with 50- pin RJ21 ( Amphenol ) connectors. They are sometimes used in other audio applications, such as in reconfigurable patch panels. Often

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408-412: Is a type of electrical connection often used in telephony . It is named because the solid copper wires are "punched down" into short open-ended slots which are a type of insulation-displacement connector . These slots, usually cut crosswise (not lengthwise) across an insulating plastic bar, contain two sharp metal blades which cut through the wire's insulation as it is punched down. These blades hold

442-658: Is also possible to punch down multiple wires on top of each other in a single post of a punch-down block, but this practice is discouraged because of reliability concerns. If these multiple wires are of different thicknesses (wire gauges), it is even more likely that the thinner wire will develop contact problems. Similarly, stranded wire can be used on punch-down blocks, but they are designed for solid wire connections. Marginal practices like these are strongly discouraged in large or mission-critical installations, because they can introduce extremely troublesome intermittent connections, as well as more-obvious outright bad connections. Once

476-461: Is mounted on a 31.75 cm by 25.40 cm ( 12.5 in by 10 in ) double-sided printed circuit board . The card connects to the backplane through a 160-pin edge connector . The faceplate of the digital line card is equipped with a red LED that lights when the card is disabled. When the card is installed, the LED remains lit for two to five seconds as a self-test runs. If the self-test completes successfully,

510-504: The 1960s, however, this view was coming under a great deal of strain. Increasingly, telephone users wanted to conference call , forward, and record voice greetings, so common today. Such features required more flexibility in the controller, leading to the development of computer-controlled switching machines, notably the Bell Labs − Western Electric 1ESS. These early machines still had an analog, usually electromechanical switching matrix because

544-554: The 1980s, which went on to be a very successful product and forced the introduction of similar products from other telephony vendors. They later added automatic call distribution and other similar services. At its zenith in the early 1980s, when it opened R&D centers in Mountain View , Ann Arbor and later in Research Triangle Park and Richardson, Texas , BNR's notable American employees included Whitfield Diffie ,

578-605: The 1990s, and was folded into the Nortel R&;D organization. For much of its early history, Bell Canada operated as the Canadian division of the Bell System . Development and manufacturing of their various telephony products generally took place in the US, and then, to avoid duty, were manufactured in Canada at their Northern Electric subsidiary (which would later become Nortel Networks ),

612-675: The Canadian analog to the US Western Electric . Northern Electric spun off a subsidiary in 1934, Dominion Sound Equipment , originally to develop equipment for sound in movies. Over time, the division evolved in an attempt to use its design talent and manufacturing ability on third party projects. In 1937, this aspect became the Special Products Division . For many years the SPD was used as Bell Canada's R&D arm, although as before, most telephony designs were created at Bell Labs in

646-399: The DMS family of products (DMS: digital multiplex switch). DMS extended the technology by fully integrating switching and transmission. This was a major advance that changed the way systems were built. BNR's products were architecturally based on Complex Instruction Set ( CISC ) architectures prevalent in the 1970s, and on a series of underlying technologies. This was greatly influenced by

680-410: The LED flashes three times and remains lit until the card is configured and enabled in software, then the LED goes out. If the LED continually flashes or remains weakly lit, there is a fault detected in the card. The digital line card is equipped with 16 identical digital line interfaces. Each interface provides a multiplexed voice, data, and signaling path to and from a digital terminal (telephone) over

714-902: The US. In 1949, the United States Justice department attempted to force AT&T to divest itself of its Western Electric subsidiary. As a result of this legal action, Western Electric sold its shares in Northern Electric to Bell Canada. In 1957, Northern Electric started its own research and development labs in Belleville, Ontario . Two years later, Northern Electric created the Northern Electric Research and Development Laboratories in Ottawa . In 1971, Bell Canada and Northern Electric combined their R&D organizations and formed Bell-Northern Research. BNR's researchers pioneered

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748-627: The company into a leadership position in the telephony world, and led to expanded designs "up and down" to provide products at all sizes, including the DMS series high-end machines, and the Meridian Norstar for smaller installations up to 200 users. The SL-1 was gradually enhanced (peripheral hardware, packaging, etc.) and renamed Meridian-1 in the late 1980s. The Meridian-1 has evolved to support IP telephony and other next generation IP services. The Meridian has 43 million installed users worldwide, making it

782-475: The global market aimed at the smaller PBX market. In the early 1970s, most PBXs were either electromechanical (e.g. cross-bar) or based on a hybrid technology (e.g. switching matrix made from a two-dimensional array of contacts but control performed by an electronic logic). For this reason, the SL-1 enjoyed a great success on the enterprise market both in North-America and globally. Its success went on to power

816-473: The late 1970s success of the DEC VAX computer, a highly "elegant" and rather layered technology, realizable in a range of power. In the early 1990s, under Nortel CEO Jean Monty , the software for the flagship DMS product was segmented into layers ('Base', 'Telecom', and 'IEC' or Inter-Exchange Carrier) to improve maintainability of the product. The IEC layers were customer-specific, targeted towards Sprint, MCI, and

850-423: The most widely used PBX . The Meridian was one of the few PBXs still available from a major communications supplier that can be configured as non- VOIP PBX and could be upgraded to a hybrid system with VoIP added. The Meridian 1 range currently consists of several models: Additionally, other products have been sold using the Meridian brand: Resellers, and accessory manufacturers frequently but erroneously use

884-494: The phrase "Meridian Option" to refer to the Meridian 1 range, to distinguish it from the smaller and larger Norstar and SL-100 A digital line card is an intelligent peripheral equipment (IPE) device which can be installed in the IPE module. It provides 16 voice and 16 data communication links between a Meridian 1 switch and modular digital telephones. The digital line card supports voice only or simultaneous voice and data service over

918-512: The technology of the time did not permit the cost-effective dedication of a filter-codec to each subscriber. (Transmission systems had already gone digital, for example the D4 carrier system.) Northern Electric introduced its first electronic central office system in 1969 with the SP1 . The SP1 had a fully computer-based electronic control system, thus the name "SP", short for "stored program". Its switching matrix

952-476: The view that a telephone switch ( PBX or Central Office ) was best regarded as a special form of real-time computer , a view that was considered to be highly innovative in the 1970s. Although George Stibitz had foreseen this evolution at AT&T in the 1930s, subsequent generations of engineers , prior to the 1970s, regarded the switch as a piece of hardware, best hard-wired, to handle the basic telephone call where two parties connect, speak and hang up. In

986-459: The wire in position and make the electrical contact with the wire as well. A tool called a punch down tool is used to push the wire down firmly and properly into the slot. Some will automatically cut any excess wire off. The exact size and shape of the tool blade varies by manufacturer, which can cause problems for those working on existing installations, especially when there is a poorly documented mix of different brands. Punch-down blocks are

1020-428: The world, including Research Triangle Park , North Carolina ; Richardson , Texas ; Ann Arbor , Michigan ; and Harlow and Maidenhead , United Kingdom . Bell-Northern Research pioneered the development of digital technology , and created the first practical digital PBX , ( SL1 ), and central office ( DMS ). Under the direction of then Nortel Chief Executive Officer, John Roth , BNR lost its separate identity in

1054-502: Was a telecommunications research and development company established In 1971 when Bell Canada and Northern Electric combined their R&D organizations. It was jointly owned by Bell Canada and Northern Telecom . BNR was absorbed into Nortel Networks when that company changed its name from Northern Telecom in the mid-1990s. BNR was based at the Carling Campus in Ottawa , Ontario , Canada, with campuses at locations around

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1088-499: Was fully digital in both control and switching. As such the SL-1 was smaller, much more reliable, and offered many more features than an equivalent electromechanical system. The SL-1 design evolved into Meridian-1, and subsequently the CS1000x as Nortel's private network (or enterprise) flagship offering. The SP-1 design was superseded by the DMS-100 central office switch and other members of

1122-701: Was jointly owned 50-50 by Bell Canada and Nortel. Nortel assumed a majority share in BNR in 1996, and BNR was gradually folded into Nortel, which acquired the remainder of BNR when BCE divested itself of Nortel. Unfortunately, the collapse in demand for Nortel products in the wake of the bursting of the dot-com bubble , which occurred after aggressive spending on acquisitions and hiring under CEO John Roth , required Nortel to trim its workforce from 96,000 (in 2001) to 35,000 people (as of 2006). Punch-down block A punch-down block (also punchdown block , punch block , punchblock , quick-connect block and other variations)

1156-503: Was still electromechanical. Rather than the reed relay matrix of the 1ESS, it used the minibar, a version of the crossbar switch. BNR was, with Northern Telecom , a part owner of MicroSystems International a semiconductor manufacturer based in Kanata, outside Ottawa. BNR introduced the Meridian SL-1 in 1975, the world's first all-digital PABX aimed at medium-sized businesses. The SL-1

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