There is a general type of system in which an indefinitely large number of transmitters can have access to any of an indefinitely large number of receivers over a medium of limited bandwidth. In these systems, signal-to-noise ratio goes down as more transmitters are used simultaneously. This paper describes a particular system which sends samples by means of coded pulse groups sent at random times. The signal-to-noise ratio is good in the absence of interference and the effect of interference is minimized by holding the previous sample if a sample is lost. An experimental system worked satisfactorily and gave close to the predicted signal-to-noise ratio. Such a system might be used to provide communication and automatic switching in rural telephony, or for other applications.
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Pierce et al. (1952) studied this question.
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