The Service Evaluation System (SES) was an

operations support system Operations support systems (OSS), operational support systems in British usage, or Operation System (OpS) in NTT, are computer systems used by telecommunications service providers to manage their networks (e.g., telephone networks). They support ...

developed by

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

and used by telephone companies beginning in the late 1960s. Many local, long distance, and operator circuit-switching systems provided special dedicated circuits to the SES to monitor the quality of customer connections during the call setup process. Calls were selected at random by switching systems and one-way voice connections were established to the SES monitoring center. During this era, most voice connections used analog trunk circuits that were designed to conform with the Via Net Loss plan established by Bell Laboratories. The purpose of the VNL plan and five-level long distance switching hierarchy was to minimize the number of trunk circuits in a call and maximize the voice quality of the connections. Excessive loss in a voice connection meant that subscribers may have difficulty hearing each other. This was particularly important in the 1960s when dial up data connections were developed with the use of analog

modems A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by modulating one or more car ...

. The SES evaluated

multi-frequency In telephony, multi-frequency signaling (MF) is a type of signaling that was introduced by the Bell System after World War II. It uses a combination of audible tones for address (telephone number) transport and supervision signaling on trunk lines ...

outpulsing signaling as well as voice impairments including sound amplitude, noise, echo, and a variety of other parameters. Deployment of

common-channel signaling In telecommunication, common-channel signaling (CCS), or common-channel interoffice signaling (CCIS), is the transmission of control information ''(signaling)'' via a separate channel than that used for the messages, The signaling channel usually ...

systems such as Common Channel Interoffice Signaling and later Signaling System #7 obviated the need to monitor

signaling as it became obsolete. The Service Evaluation System was described in Notes on the Network published by

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

in 1970, 1975, 1980 and later versions published by Bell Communications Research (now

Telcordia Technologies iconectiv is a supplier of network planning and network management services to telecommunications providers. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System, the company's name ...

) in 1983, 1986, 1990, 1994, and 2000.

References

{{Reflist Telecommunications standards Telecommunications systems