the subject wideband switching network provides inexpensive point - to - point wideband communication connections . wideband source and destination terminal equipment are either connected to modems which encode the analog signals used by the wideband source terminal equipment into digital signals for transmission through the wideband switching network and decode the received digital signals into analog signals used by the wideband destination terminal equipment ; or are directly connected to the wideband switching network if source and destination terminal equipment transmit and receive digital signals . the modems are connected to the wideband switching network by optical fibers . the wideband switching network is a point - to - point space division switch that is comprised of a matrix of high frequency semiconductor crosspoints . wideband communication connections are originated by a subscriber transmitting connection control signals to the wideband switching network controller on a dial - up basis from a telephone station set , on a data link from a computer or directly from a keyboard associated with the wideband switching network controller . the wideband switching network can concurrently switch any combination of voice , audio , video , data .