Chapter 817 International Leadership and Next Steps

"Clear, very clear!" The acceptance team leader spoke a few words to the person on the other end of the red phone in high spirits.

After that, he turned around and called everyone: "Try to call each other, everyone, dial a few more numbers. Oh, and dial the wrong numbers too."

This requirement is also to more firmly establish the fact that the programmable switching system was successful.

If only two phones can dial each other, it is possible that a direct line is used, but if they can be cross-dialed, and the numbers and phones can correspond, and the wrong numbers cannot be dialed, then it basically proves that this thing can really be used.

As for the supported communication line length and so on, these are not a problem. That is a matter of line equipment such as lines, amplification, relaying, and regeneration. There is no need to worry about these here.

For a moment, the venue was bustling with activity. This was the first live, large-scale exchange of telephone numbers in history.

"Old X, how much is yours?"

"Old Y, mine is XXXXXXXX, don't make a mistake."

"Why can't I get through? Oops, I dialed the wrong number."

"It's working."

"Hey, Old C, can you hear me clearly?"

"I can hear you clearly! How can I not hear you when you call me right next to my ear? I can hear you clearly with my ears and in the microphone too!"

The venue was in chaos, with all kinds of sounds coming one after another, including the unique "beep" sound of push-button phones and the occasional "ding-ling-ling" sound of the two single-dial phones.

No test report can be as real and thorough as making a phone call yourself.

After a burst of noise, the acceptance personnel put down the phone reluctantly. It’s a new toy, and who wouldn’t want to play with it for a while longer?

"How many phone lines can this device support?" asked the acceptance team leader.

In the report, he learned that this type of equipment can support a wide range of scales from 100 to 20000 doors. He wanted to know how many doors the size of the equipment at the venue could support.

"This is the upper limit of the minimum scale, 800 lines. By expanding the mainframe and switching cabinet, it can be expanded to 6000 or even 20000 lines. To be honest with you experts, within our Institute of Communications, except for the manual switching of export exchanges, the internal communications of the institute are completed by a 400-line program-controlled exchange to complete the switching work of the institute's telephone communications."

You should experiment on yourself first, that's right, that's right.

As for the manual exchange for exports, there is nothing you can do about it. People use manual labor. If you don’t get a manual exchange, you can’t even get in or out by phone.

"With just such a small device, can it complete the task of switching 800 calls?" If 800 calls were switched manually, it would take a whole large room with a lot of manual switches and operators to complete the task.

Without considering the operating costs such as operator salaries and maintenance of so many devices, the cost of the equipment itself alone has actually paid for itself, not to mention other marginal costs such as power supply and venue.

If you calculate carefully, you can save a lot of money.

Of course, what we are talking about here is the cost, not the selling price. The selling price is another matter, especially in the early stages of a technology.

The Institute of Communications has its own switchboard, which makes comrades in other units very envious. To be honest, dealing with an operator who is busy all day and in an unstable mood is not a very pleasant thing. It is even more troublesome if one of the two parties has an accent.

Even if the operator is in a stable mood, the time saved by this type of switch is a fortune.

"We have tested it and found that even if the two ends of the call are cascaded through multiple programmable switches, the connection speed is almost the same as what you just experienced when making a phone call." A comrade from the Institute of Communications said with a smile.

"Okay, that's great. This thing must be promoted as soon as possible. Even if it is not promoted, we can still conduct trials first. Our unit can provide you with a test product. As for the funding, we will carry forward our style and provide it ourselves, so as not to add any burden to you." The acceptance team leader said cheerfully.

Comrades from other units are fed up with this. I can hear the sound of your abacus beads outside the city!

"We can do that too."

"Yes, yes, yes. Their work is important and cannot be delayed easily. For something like this that is experimental in nature, we should do it first, and they can do it after it is stable."

"We can do that too. We are small in scale, so 100 doors are enough. We can achieve the effect of trial operation without too much investment."

"..."For a moment, people in the venue rushed to show their style and strive to be "guinea pigs".

Seeing the scene was a bit chaotic, the leader of the Postal and Communications Commission sitting here patted the microphone and said: "Comrades, thank you very much for participating in our trial work. We will talk about this matter later. We will come up with a small-scale trial plan, and then welcome all brother units to sign up. Now let's do the acceptance first."

This is the top priority of the Postal and Communications Commission in terms of advanced equipment, without a doubt. It is a very normal attitude for him to be here in person. It would be strange if he didn't come.

Not only him, but also the chief engineer of the Postal and Communications Commission came. With his technical expertise, it was normal for him to come and support the team during the acceptance inspection. However, he was of little use. Basically, the research team had solved the experts' problems by themselves, so his presence only served to show their importance.

I think the leadership is of high level. It's an open application, but we won't discuss that here. We will communicate slowly and come up with a unified plan and formulate relevant requirements and standards. Then you can all show your talents.

Moreover, this kind of equipment is definitely used the most by the Postal and Communications Commission itself. Other units can only manage it within their own departments, but the Postal and Communications Commission is responsible for the entire country. The promotion of this thing is destined to be a long process, and it is mainly a matter of money.

The comrades then came to their senses and realized that the matter had gone too far.

"Well, that's right, let's put this matter aside for now. Do you have any questions? If not, we can give you our suggestions." The acceptance team leader brought the topic back and set the tone.

No opinion, what opinion can I have?
The experts present discussed it for a few minutes and quickly reached a consensus.

"After on-site reporting and test demonstration, the experts at the meeting listened to the report of the research team and personally participated in the demonstration test. They discussed and studied with the research team and finally determined that the functions of the CKJH-62 air-separated program-controlled exchange meet the requirements of the project, the performance meets the planned requirements, the technical level reaches the international leading level, and it fully meets all the goals of the project planning. Acceptance is approved."

This acceptance opinion is a high praise.

The words "discussion and research" were not used instead of "questioning and answering", which can well reflect the mentality of the acceptance team.

There is not a single umbrella term such as "basically meets" in the entire document, and the technical level is directly assessed as "internationally leading". It can be seen that the acceptance team has given it their all.

If you think about it carefully, this is as it should be. The level of this thing is truly world-leading.

After the meeting, everyone was happy. When many acceptance experts left, they did not forget to emphasize to the leaders of the Postal and Communications Commission that once the trial plan came out, they must not forget to notify their units.

Several people from the 12th Ministry of Machine Building came to Gao Zhendong to chat for a while before leaving. It was a rare opportunity to meet this comrade from the 17th Ministry of Machine Building who was extremely legendary within the 12th Ministry of Machine Building. It would be a pity if they didn't chat with him for a few more minutes.

After they all left, the leader of the Postal and Communications Commission and the chief engineer did not rush to leave. Instead, they asked Gao Zhendong to hold another small meeting. Only the two of them, Gao Zhendong, the dean of the Institute of Communications, and General Manager Feng were present.

"Comrade Zhendong, this switch has achieved some results. What do you think we should do next?" The leader of the Postal and Communications Commission spoke up and asked Gao Zhendong for advice.

Speaking of this matter, Gao Zhendong has actually considered it.

"Leader, my consideration is this: space division switches are one of the basic technologies of time division and digital switches. Up to now, the comrades of the Institute of Communications have actually mastered some of the technical foundations of time division/digital switches. At the same time, the external technical environment also has some capabilities that can support time division/digital switches. I am considering whether we can go a step further on the basis of space division switches and develop digital switches, or at least time division switches with digital switching characteristics."

Gao Zhendong directly skipped the time-division switching. In fact, to some extent, the distinction between time-division switching and digital switching is already very small, and these differences are exactly what Gao Zhendong has mastered, and many of them are soft.

So he thought it would be better to just go all the way and go straight for the digital switch.

Gao Zhendong's words made the comrades in the Institute of Communications very excited. They had already been drooling over the programmable digital switching system that Gao Zhendong had introduced to them at that time. That thing was very cool.

Apart from anything else, a lot of calls can be made on just one line, which puts space division switching, or pure line switching, on the line.

So economical!

Together with comrades from the Military Communications Institute, they learned PCM pulse code modulation from Gao Zhendong. They also took time to study it a lot. It can be said that they have a certain technical foundation and the possibility of realization is possible.

In addition, the Institute of Military Communications must have also conducted research in this area and have accumulated certain results. After all, when they were learning PCM, it could be said that they were learning ahead of the times, but the comrades at the Institute of Military Communications really needed to use it at the time, so they must have achieved certain results.

Similar ones include A/D and D/A, and I think there may be some results that can be used there.

With these, some of the basic problems of digital exchange have been solved.

However, the Postal and Communications Commission was more cautious: "Comrade Zhendong, isn't this a bit too big a step?"

It sounds like this is not a simple thing. If such a big step does not produce results for a long time, will it dampen the enthusiasm of the comrades in the Institute of Communications?
Gao Zhendong didn't mind their caution: "In fact, the next step of space separation is time and number, and there is a strong connection and inheritance between the two, so I personally don't think it's a big problem to go for numbers, even if it takes a little longer. Don't we have the successful space separation exchange to rely on?"

(End of this chapter)