What is a Switch?
In telephony, a switch is a device within a telephone exchange, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN), that connects calls from the requester to the destination. They're typically found in central offices, which are large switching stations operated by phone service providers. An individual call may travel through several central offices on the way to the call recipient, and the hand-offs are all enabled by switches. In addition to processing voice transmissions, switches can also facilitate digital communications by connecting computer modems to whatever location they request.
Switches include both a hardware and a software component. In fact, switching software automated what used to be done by large numbers of human phone switch operators. They do this by physically connecting incoming calls to the appropriate outgoing circuit. When you use landline phones, you're interacting with this smart technology, beginning with when you lift the receiver and hear a dial tone.
Telephone switches are part of the backbone of our current telecommunications system.
How NICE can help
NICE CXone is the market leading contact center software in use by thousands of customers of all sizes around the world. CXone is a cloud native, unified suite of applications designed to help a company holistically run its contact (or call) center operations. CXone includes:
Omnichannel Routing – routing and interaction management. These solutions include an automatic call distributor (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), interaction channel support and proactive outbound dialer.
Workforce Optimization – unlocks the potential of your team. These solutions include workforce management (WFM), quality management (QM), recording and performance management (PM).
Open Cloud Foundation – enables rapid innovation with an extensible enterprise-grade platform that scales securely, deploys quickly and serves customers of all sizes globally. We guarantee an industry-best 99.99% availability and offer easy customization through RESTful APIs and DEVone developer program.
CXone provides an intelligent, unified suite of applications covering the breadth of contact center management disciplines, simplifying administration and streamlining the user experience.