he Wild West, there was a young man named Alman B. Strowger who wasn't a telecommunications engineer by trade. He was a mortician. As life would have it, he had a competitor in town. During this period, there were no dial pads to use when making a telephone call. Instead, you had to talk with the town telephone operator, who would extend the con- nection on your behalf. Mr. Strowger's competitor's wife was the town telephone opera- tor. So, needless to say, anytime there was gossip about a gun battle about to brew on Main Street, she let her husband know, and he was there to collect the bodies before Mr. Strowger got a chance. Mr. Strowger decided to use technology to get a competitive advantage, and he invented the Strowger switch. The new switch meant that you could dial a number directly from your phone, bypassing the town telephone operator. The first generation of circuit switches was introduced in 1888. It was referred to as the step relay switch, the step-by-step switch, or the Strowger switch, in honor of the man who invented it (see Figure 3.2). Chapter 3 Establishing Communications Channels Selector Connector Electromechanical generation; introduced in 1888 One mechanism (line selector) needed for each call, resulting in limited availability Line selector listens for each digit and sets a separate selector and connector for each digit The four-part switch is occupied during the entire call Electromechanical is very labor intensive and requires a large amount of space Figure 3.2 A step relay switch In 1935 the second generation of circuit switches was introduced: crossbar switches (see Figure 3.3). Crossbar switches were electromechanical, but each one could service a larger number of subscribers than could a step relay switch. Both step relay and crossbar switches still exist in the world. Of course, they are generally in underdeveloped areas, but they're not all relegated to museums quite yet. Every year you hear about one or two being decommissioned somewhere in the world. The third generation of circ