BORSCHT stands for Battery feed, Overvoltage protection, Ringing, Signaling, Coding, Hybrid, and Testing. These are the core electrical and logical duties a central office line card must perform to support a standard analog telephone. Engineers use this mnemonic to ensure all necessary hardware functions are present when designing digital switches that interface with legacy copper lines.
The new IP gateways still need a physical circuit to handle the BORSCHT functions for the remaining analog desk phones.
Related terms
POTS
Plain old telephone service is the traditional analog voice transmission network using copper wires.
Line card
A modular printed circuit board that plugs into a telecom switch or router to provide port interfaces.
Telephone exchange
A central system of switches that routes calls between subscribers.