This section presents a brief historical outline of signaling. The earliest telephone exchanges were “manual” switchboards, in which all calls were set up and taken down by operators. Signaling between subscribers and operators was limited to tivtging. To make a call, the subscriber would send a ringing signal. This alerted an operator, who would connect her telephone to the calling line, and ask for the called number. The operator then would connect her telephone to the called line, and ring th