Computerization of the Local Telephone Network

Caller ID made its debut in the 1980s, along with a whole bunch of other
services: call return, caller ID blocking, and even call waiting. These services
became possible because of the digitization of the local telephone network, in
particular the design and implementation of a switch designed by Western
Electric called the Number 5 Electronic Switching System (5ESS®).
The 5ESS was revolutionary for the telecom industry, essentially turning the
business model upside down and helping to transform the telephone network
into a sprawling digital ecosystem where voice, data, video, image, and any
other format of communication represented by 1s and 0s could be transmitted
simultaneously. The technology behind the 5ESS could also expand or contract
the number of lines, depending upon demand—and do it without an army of
telephone company engineers having to install or rip out cables.
The 5ESS took 20 years, 5,000 workers, and 100 million lines of system source
code to develop. The skills needed to pull this off represented a spectrum of
technical expertise. AT&T split into separate companies in the middle of the
project, which meant that it was not enough suddenly to design and build the
new switch—it had to be packaged and marketed to a whole new kind of
customer, the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs). Whole swaths of
the 5ESS effort involved training salespeople, technicians, and executives on
how this new technology worked and how to talk about it, depending upon the
level of detail their job required.
For the consumers, the 5ESS meant a more complicated phone system, with
more features that could be purchased and the sudden need to think about the
impact of those features on their privacy. Caller ID let people know who was
calling before they picked up the phone, but it also revealed the caller’s phone
number. Telephone calls would never be the same. The economic backdrop
that was occurring at the time of 5ESS’s debut was far from tranquil. After the
breakup of the Bell System, 5ESS was moved to the AT&T Network Systems
division, which was then divested to Lucent Technologies and then finally
acquired by Nokia®.
SEE ALSO Strowger Step-by-Step Switch (1891), Digital Long Distance (1962)
Services such as caller ID were made possible by the digitization of the local
telephone network.