A telephone switchboard is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network or in enterprises to interconnect circuits of telephones to establish telephone calls between the subscribers or users, or between other exchanges. The sw

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A telephone switchboard is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network or in enterprises to interconnect circuits of telephones to establish telephone calls between the subscribers or users, or between other exchanges. The switchboard was an essential component of a manual telephone exchange, and was operated by one or more persons, called operators who either used electrical cords or switches to establish the connections. The electromechanical automatic telephone exchange, invented by Almon Strowger in 1888, gradually replaced manual switchboards in central telephone exchanges starting in 1919 when the Bell System adopted automatic switching.

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