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BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL 



may be for another subscriber in the same office or for one in another 

 nearby machine switching or manual office; it may be for one of a 

 large number of suburban toll points, or it may be to some point in a 

 distant city. 



The machine switching system, which is the subject of this paper, 

 meets these requirements. After long-continued laboratory experi- 



Fig. 5 — Desk Stand Equipped with Dial 



ments, supplemented by field trials, power-driven apparatus of the 

 panel type has been found to be the most suitable, and is now in 

 successful operation in New York City and in other large cities in the 

 country. 



General Plan of Operation 



At the expense of some repetition it seems desirable in order to give 

 as clear an understanding as possible as to the operation of the system, 

 to first give a brief outline of how the call is handled and a description 

 of the more important elements of the equipment, before going into 

 a detailed description of the operation of the system. 



