SIMS-201

The Telephone System

Wired and
Wireless

Overview
Chapter 13
The Telephone System: Wired and
Wireless
Analog Telephone system
Digital telephone system
Cellular telephone system
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Introduction

Now that we have learned what information

is, how to represent it, and how to convert it
from analog to digital form, we can now
learn the techniques and systems used to
transmit this information
The oldest system used to transmit
information globally is considered to be the
telephone system
We will specifically learn about the analog
and digital telephone system, as well as the
cellular telephone system
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The Analog Telephone

System

The analog system was the first telephone

system established worldwide. Currently,
telephone systems in a lot of countries are still
completely analog. In time however, these
systems will become redundant as the world
switches to digital telephony.

The components of a telephone system include:

Microphone
Receiver
Transmission System
Switching and signaling system
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Telephone system components

Signaling and switching
system
Transmission
system

receiver
microphone
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Microphone
Converts the vibrations in the air into an electrical
signal
Receiver
Converts the received electrical signal into sound waves
(the reverse action of a microphone) e.g.: loudspeaker
Transmission system
Conveys the information representing the audio signal
from the microphone to the receiver
Signaling and switching system
Determines and makes appropriate connections among
the pieces of the transmission system to create a path
from the transmitter to the receiver

The Digital Telephone

System

While the description of the analog telephone system

provides an accurate overview of the principles of current
telephone systems, it is a fact that most telephone calls
today are really digital telephone calls
In a digital telephone system, the two ends of the call are
analog, and the middle section is digital. Conversions from
analog to digital (A/D), and back to analog (D/A), are made
in such a way that it is essentially impossible for human
ear to determine that there was any conversion at all
Although the analog telephone system is gradually being
converted to digital, the input and output of the system
still remains analog because the eventual use is for
humans that are only able to process analog information

At present, most telephone calls are analog from the

telephone at home to the first switching office, so the A/D
and D/A conversion is made at this office
In the future, as telephone systems become all digital, this
conversion from A/D and from D/A will be made within the
telephone set at home
The A/D conversion process was explained in the previous
lectures- The voice signal- an analog waveform was sampled
at a sampling frequency, and quantized to a number of
levels. These values were then assigned binary codes to
complete the conversion process from analog to digital
The D/A process was also explained briefly. The bits were
decoded into their quantized values, and a waveform similar
to the original analog waveform was obtained

For voice, we recall that the standard sampling frequency is

8000Hz
The standard number of quantization levels for audio signals is
256, requiring 8 bits
So, the bit rate for a digital telephone call is: 8,000x8=64,000
bits per second (64 Kbps)

1/s=Hz

bits

This is the bit rate that would reach the central office if the A/D
conversion was being done inside the telephone at home
Since many calls arrive at the central office, they can all be
combined, and switched to another center to be routed to the
destination
Combining many channels and sending them simultaneously
through a single transmission line is called multiplexing. We will
learn more about this in a later chapter

One advantage of digital transmission,

is that after digitization, all types of
information are in the form of bits, so a
single system, such as a telephone
system can be used to carry telephone
calls, internet data or any other data at
a suitable bit rate

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The Cellular Telephone

System

The cellular telephone system is different from the previous

systems that we discussed, because the major transmission
medium is air instead of wires (between the mobile unit and the
base station) as in the analog and digital telephone systems
In a cellular system, the signal from a mobile unit (cell phone)
to a base station is transmitted by radio waves through the air,
instead of through metallic wires
However, the signal from the base station is sent to a mobile
switching center and possibly to a telephone central office
through electrical wires where it is switched to the appropriate
destination
The antenna at the base station converts the radio waves to
electrical signals and circuits in the base station send the signal
to the appropriate mobile switching center

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The Cellular Concept

Base station

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An example cellular telephone syste

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How cellular telephone systems

work

The area (a city, or a part of town) is divided into a number of

cells (typically 2 to 10 miles in size, but can be smaller for more
crowded areas) and a base station is positioned within each cell
If a user (mobile phone) is within a particular cell, the call is
handled by the corresponding base station within that cell
The base station transmits the signal to the mobile switching
center (also called MTSO), which switches the signal to another
base station, or to a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN),
depending on the destination of the call: whether another
mobile unit or a regular telephone
As a user moves from one cell to another, the call is handed
over to the base station of the other cell-This is called hand-of
The handover is (hopefully) transparent to the user

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MTSO
Mobile Telephone
Switching Office

PSTN
Public Switched
Telephone Network

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The mobile unit and the base station in a cell communicate

at a certain frequency
The signal from the mobile unit arrives at the antenna of
the base station and is converted into an electrical signal

Base station
antenna (3 sector)

1/3rd of cell is
covered by
each sector of 16
antenna

Every cell uses a different set of frequencies

So how does the phone know what frequency to
be on?
A Cell-Site Controller handles this process
When a cell phone is turned on, it registers with
the network and guards a control frequency
When a call is placed, the phone requests that
a frequency (really two) be assigned
When a call is received, the call is set up over
the control channel (find the right phone, tell it
what frequencies to use, connect the call)

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Comments for next class

Finish chapter 13

Generations of cellular systems

Satellite telephones

Chapter 16
Radio-Frequency and Satellite Systems
-Satellite systems
-GPS
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