But while there he learned that in the future the telephone switch would be the big server of data.

FORBES: Cement meets the cyberworld

Just 15 days after the Bay news, Nortel announced a product that combines the features of a telephone switch with a Cisco-like ability to handle Internet traffic.

FORBES: Follow Through

Aided by a couple of Internet telephone veterans, he put the telephone switch at the center of the operating system and made it possible to connect it to almost any Internet phone system (except Skype).

FORBES: Dial D for Disruption

It apparently took just one telephone call from the Kremlin to switch the tone from vehemently anti-Western to broadly neutral.

ECONOMIST: Russia's presidency

With Asterisk loaded onto a computer, a decent-size company can rip out its traditional phone switch, even some of its newfangled Internet telephone gear, and say good-bye to 80% of its telecom equipment costs.

FORBES: Dial D for Disruption

Each customer site links its own internal network to the Telseon system through a single dedicated switch, a far simpler route than the clumsy path of the old telephone system.

FORBES: Weaving The Perfect Net

Telephone companies have used fiber for two decades, but the network boxes that reroute and switch the signals have always been based on silicon chips and copper circuitry.

FORBES: Hooked on Photonics

The telephone bombardments lasted as long as a week, sometimes forcing victims to disconnect their lines or switch phone numbers, which bought the suspects time to raid their accounts.

WSJ: Hack Attack: How to Protect Your Online Accounts

In America, for instance, employees are increasingly making it a hobby to switch between 401(k) mutual funds over the Internet or by using a toll-free telephone number.

ECONOMIST: Passing the buck | The