AUTOMATIC EXCHANGES

Almon Brown Strowger was an undertaker who suspected that the wife of his competitor, who was an operator in the local manual telephone exchange, directed calls for an undertaker to her husband. That annoyed him. With some technical friends he designed an automatic telephone switching system for which he was granted a patent in 1891. He founded a company, but he soon licenced his patent to the Automatic Electric Company. That was the start of a global standard for almost one hundred years! It took several decades before companies such as Ericsson and Siemens could offer serious competition with their inventions.