The American telecommunications giant MCI last week began field trials of an
optical switching system developed by the Japanese company Hitachi. At present
all telephone traffic is switched electronically, even on fibre-optic networks.
The test on telephone traffic in Dallas 鈥渕arks the first step towards the
creation of the world鈥檚 first completely optical network鈥, said Fred Briggs, the
company鈥檚 chief engineer.
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