Adlib Internet Server 5

Title
Collection of sales documentation and technical manuals relating to the BT Monarch Call Connect System digital PABX (private automatic branch exchange)
Reference
MS/2186
Production date
1980 - 1996

Creator

British Telecom Biography Biography
British Telecom (BT) is the name used by the world’s oldest telecommunications company between 1980 and 1984. The company's origins date back to the establishment of the first telecommunications companies in the United Kingdom. Among them was the first commercial telegraph service, the Electric Telegraph Company, introduced in 1846. As these companies amalgamated and were taken over or collapsed, the survivors were eventually transferred to state control under the Post Office. The telecommunications side of the organisation became known as Post Office Telecommunications. In 1980 the organisation was again renamed, becoming British Telecom. In 1982 the UK government announced its intention to privatise British Telecom. This decision was implemented on 6 August 1984, when the business became a privatised company, British Telecommunications plc - the forerunner of today’s global communications company, BT Group plc, which serves customers in 170 countries.

Scope and Content
Monarch was developed from 1976 by a Post Office research team, working at first at Dollis Hill and later at Martlesham, together with the telecommunications industry, at the same time that the System X digital exchange was being developed for the public network. The first trial local System X exchange went into service at Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1981 and the first System X main exchange was installed in 1983. By 1987 virtually all the main switching units had been converted to digital, comprising some 55 main exchanges. By 1988 local exchanges were being converted to System X in large numbers. (System Y, an alternative digital exchange system, was also being installed in many local exchanges.) The British network was entirely digital by 1998. System X was a great success technically, although export orders were few, largely owing to political issues arising from management of its production development among several manufacturers. The Monarch 120 PABX system first went into service in 1980 and aspects of its circuit design had a crucial influence on System X development. It was one of the first all-digital PABX systems in the world.
Extent
7 items
Language
English
Level of description
TOP
Repository name
Science Museum, London
Conditions governing access
Open Access
Conditions governing Reproduction
Copies may be supplied in accordance with current copyright legislation and Science Museum Group terms and conditions

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