Talk:Nortel Meridian

Importance
I think its important to have the Meridan as a Wikipedia article. There needs to be more traditional telephony articles which it lacks of in more for the VoIP stuff. If the Meridan article gets expanded, then I would figure that other systems will get covered on Wikipedia like the Definity, the NEAX, Norstar (the small end Nortel system that was formerly the Meridian) or other major systems. I just added more info to the article, so hopefully someone can expand it some more! Steven312 19:49, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

VoIP?
The Meridian 1 does support Voice Over IP. This comes in the form of "ITG-Trunk cards" for H.323 VoIP trunking. Also, VoIP between the PBX and IP sets can be added using an "IP Line card".

Additionally the PBX can be upgraded to a "CS1000" IP PBX via hardware and software upgrade (but leaving the majority of the switch intact). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.55.112 (talk) 20:09, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Verification?
Why is there some need for verification that the Meridian system actually does exist when it actually does exist? Just go to the Kmart nearby my neighborhood and they have a Meridian system. The verification tag makes the article look like it is talking about something that doesn't exist when there is actually such thing as the Meridian system. KansasCity 21:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


 * For verification that the product exists, it's simple enough to link to the vendor's product page: http://products.nortel.com/go/product_content.jsp?segId=0&catId=null&parId=0&prod_id=29141&locale=en-US
 * I think the verificaiton tag has more to do with citing sources for statement such as


 * "it was first introduced in 1976" and
 * "one of the industry's first fully digital PBXs"
 * For that, I suggest the following reference: http://products.nortel.com/go/product_assoc.jsp?segId=0&parId=0&catId=null&rend_id=5181&contOid=100177491&prod_id=27582&locale=en-US


 * Also, according to the vendor, the product scale is "from 60 to 80,000 lines" I will update that shortly.

--TravisM 18:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Let me put on the record, I did add the 1976 and one of the first digital PBX reference. I have a great memory and I had seen it on the Nortel website a few years ago. The information is true. Also the Newton's Telecom Dictionary (also avaliable at your local Borders) also had made smiliar references. And one thing, people whom just throw randon "cite your sources" means they don't a damn thing about PBXes or telecom systems, therefore they think they know what they are talking about, but that isn't true. I mean the "importance" thing also gives away that they don't know what they are talking about. I know the Meridian I know PBXes I know telecom systems, so I know what I am talking about. I would check the Internet Archive to find it on their history page to see if you want to back up my word. Steven312 23:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Notability
To establish the notability of the Meridian, is it worth including comment that the Meridian 1 is the only large-scale non-IP PBX offered by BT Davidprior 00:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

SL1
While I have no outside knowledge of them, from reading the Wikipedia pages, it seems like SL1 and Meridian SL-1 are the same thing as Nortel Meridian (or perhaps ancestral or early models). Given the lack of information available, I propose merging those two pages into this one. We can always split again, should article size demand it. Objections? Comments? — DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * User:Jim.henderson did half of this, merging Meridian SL-1 with Nortel Meridian. Good job and thanks, Jim!  To make them easier to find, here are some interesting links copied from the talk page of the now-merged page:
 * http://phrack.org/issues.html?issue=44&id=19&mode=txt
 * http://www.actw.nl/Telefoonmuseum/Images/Meridian_small.jpg

Meridain - SL1
This is personal knowlege without references. Northern Telecom first introduced the SL-1 product line during the late 1970's. The digital telephone, an SL1, at the time was a hybred running on two pair of wires, a control pair and a talk pair. Both analog and the Sl1 voice signal was converted to time division multiplex (digital) in the line cards by a codex device. During the late 1980's a true digital set was developed where the codex resided in the phone. The M2009 and the M2112 were two examples of this technology. Around 1990 the Meridian name was introduced and about that time Northern Telecom changed it's name to Nortel. The Meridian series of phones where introduced to replace the early versions mentioned above. The Meridian platform of the 1990's with its modular architecture no longer supported the SL-1 hybed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.223.207.28 (talk) 19:18, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The Big Picture
I was hired by Bell Canada in 1973 as a switching center (aka "central office" or "CO") technician so here are some personal recollections:

A lot of SXS technology was installed in the 1940s but it was industry policy to attempt to make every investment last up to 40 years. At a very high level of abstraction, step-by-step is a lot like a massive networks of CPUs because a data decision was made at each switch as it responded to a single dialed digit. A lot of 5XB crossbar was installed in the late 1950s and 1960s. 5XB employed one, or more, markers (an electro-mechanical computer) to set up connections though a matrix of interconnected crossbar switches. SL1 (stored logic one) was developed by Northern Electric (NE) in the early 1970s for use in a PBX environment at large customer sites (industry, education, government). SL1 employed a computer as a marker on a matrix of minibars (miniature crossbars). NE then used their experience to develop SP1 (stored program one) for use by the phone company in central office locations.

Note: crossbars and minibars are nothing but a set of relays so we are still talking "analog signals" up to this point.

It was during the mid 1970s that I heard gossip indicating that NE had developed an all-digital switch but were putting it on the shelf for a year or two until the cost of silicon chips came down. NE changed their name to Northern Telecom (then later, Nortel) around the time I heard about the all-digital switch called DMS (DMS-100 for local switching; DMS-200 for toll switching; DMS-10 for CDO use in smaller communities and DMS-1). There was also a DMS-1 which was intended to replace PBXs but that didn't work out so DMS-1 was repurposed as a 256 line concentrator.

We installed our DMS-200 in 1978 then installed a DMS-100 to replace our SxS switch in 1980-1. IIRC, the 5XB was replaced around 1985 meaning that 5XB only lasted 20 years.

As an "inside technician", I never worked on Meridian but was certain that it was an all-digital replacement for SL1.

Software Comment: Part way through my career I switched over to computer programming and software design. I knew a lot of people who developed software at Nortel and never once heard anyone mention VxWorks. Everyone was talking about a general complaint of new employees: "why are you not using C"? Apparently Northern Telecom hired a new batch of engineering grads each year who knew how to program in "C" but then had to attend company classes where they were taught how to program in Protel. So a decision was made (1988-9) to convert their source code from Protel into C. IIRC, this took a year longer than expected with translated into a loss of sales.

Neilrieck (talk) 16:21, 27 June 2021 (UTC)