Wescom switching

Wescom Switching Incorporated was a designer and manufacturer of PBXs and ACDs (under the 501 & 580 product name) from 1974 until its sale (along with Wescom Inc.) to Rockwell International in 1980. Rockwell continued the development and marketing of the 580 product line until the 580 technology was sold to Ditran in 1982.

Wescom had a major presence in the T1 transmission industry at the time, and also was marketing the 501 Analog PBX.

Sam Pitroda hired on at Wescom. INC around 1974, initiating the company on the path to the 580 Digital Switching System product which was a distributed processing stored program control PBX. [ [http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/top_stories/102122703.asp Dataquest : Top Stories : Sam Pitroda: Lifetime Achievement Award 2002 ] ] . In addition to an Intel 8080 CPU complex, the heart of the 580 was the digital network frame which implemented a 64kb Time-Division Multiplexing digital network as the basic switching fabric of the 580 DSS. The first product in the family was the 3072 timeslot 580L-PBX which had a set of 6 Intel 8080 microprocessors for handling individual tasks in its control complex. Each of these actually consisted of redundant processor cards, each of which had hardware matching between two 8080 chips. In smaller sized systems the tasks were combined in fewer physical processors. This led to the term "monogeneric" software and hardware for the various sized systems.

In about 1978 the development of the Automatic Call Distributors began, with the MACD (medium ACD) being released first at Frontier Airlines, follwed by small and very small systems in short succession. By 1980, the 580 PBX and ACD development effort had effectively bankrupt Wescom with many vendors having placed the company on credit hold. Rockwell Intl purchased Wescom in 1980 solving Wescom's cash problems and embarking the company onto the common carrier market, creating the SCX product line. SCX provided the early backbone for the early MCI network after the break-up of AT&T. Rockwell already had a successful ACD business with the "Galaxy" system through their Collins Radio arm. Rockwell's interest in the 580 product line centered around it's 100% non-blocking network frame that connected the voice paths within the system. The network frame actually had additional switching capability that would later be utilized to process digital connections. Quite and effort for a small family run business competing with the likes of Rohlm, GTE and others!

The last of the 580 product line was probably sold in the early to mid 1990s by Ditran's succesor Digital Transmission Inc. (DTI) who developed additional hardware and software to utilize the ACD platform for Enhanced 911 PSAPs and remote PSAPs.

Wescom Switching, Inc. had 16 patents issued [ [http://www.patentgenius.com/assignee/WescomSwitchingInc.html Wescom Switching, Inc. Patents ] ] which all related to the 580 product line. Some additional patents were isssued after the sale to Rockwell as well.