Wescom switching

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Wescom Switching Incorporated was a designer and manufacturer of PBXs and ACDs (under the 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.

Sam Pitroda started the company^[1], along with some fine talent from Wescom, Inc., implementing a 64kb Time-Division Multiplexing network as the basic switching fabric of the 580. Wescom had a major presence in the T1 transmission industry at the time, and also was marketing the 501 Analog PBX. 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, and was probably part of the impetus for Rockwell's being a bidder for Wescom, in that they were involved in the ACD business through their Collins Radio arm which gave them an inside track to airline reservation call centers.

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^[2] which all related to the 580 product line. Some additional patents were isssued after the sale to Rockwell as well.