CHAPTER THREE

Fundamentals of
Telecommunication Networks

Course Code: ECEg4282

Course Title: Telecommunication Networks
2014 E.C
 3.2. Digital Hierarchy Technologies
Outline
 Digital Hierarchy Technologies
 T-1 Carrier System
 Plesiochronous digital hierarchy (PDH)
 Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH)
 Synchronous optical network (SONET)
 Introduction
• Time division multiplexing allows a link to be utilized simultaneously by many
users.
 Introduction Cont’d…..
• The transmission is organized into frames.

• Each frame contains a fixed number of time slots.

• Each time slot is pre-assigned to a specific input link.

• The duration of a time slot is either a bit or a byte.

• If the buffer of an input link has no data, then its associated time slot is
transmitted empty.

• A time slot dedicated to an input link repeats continuously frame after frame,
thus forming a channel or a trunk.
 Introduction Cont’d…..
• Voice analog signals are digitized using Pulse Code Modulation (PCM).

• A voice signal is sampled 8000 times/sec, or every 125μsec.

• An 8-bit number is assigned to each sample at every 125μsec

 T-1 Carrier System
• The T-1 carrier system was introduced in 1961 to carry the traffic between
telephone central offices.

• It uses a transmission frame that consists of 24 slots of 8 bits each.

• Each slot carries one PCM sample for a single connection.

• The beginning of each frame is indicated by a single bit that follows a certain
periodic pattern.

• The resulting transmission line has a speed of:

(1+24*8)bits/frame*8000 frames/seconds = 1.544Mbps

 T-1 Carrier System Cont’d…
• T-1 carrier system

Demux
 Digital Transmission Hierarchies
• The growth of telephone network traffic and the advances in digital
transmission led to the development of a standard digital transmission
hierarchy.

• Different regions of the world use different digital transmission hierarchies.

• There are three basic digital transmission hierarchies.

 Plesiochronous digital hierarchy (PDH)

 Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH)

 Synchronous optical network (SONET)

 PDH in North American
• Plesion means “nearly the same” and chronos means “time” in Greek.

• The 24 channel PCM system is the primary order of Digital MUX.

• If it is necessary to transmit more than 24 channels, the system is build-up using the PDH.

• Digital Signal (DS) standard is a North American standard that specifies how to multiplex
several voice calls onto a single link.

• The DS1 signal corresponds to the output of a T-1 multiplexer.

• It is the basic building block of the digital hierarchy.

• The DS2 signal is obtained by combining 4 DS1 signals.

• The DS3 signal is obtained by combining 28 DS1 signals.

 PDH in North American cont’d…
• The DS3 signal, with a speed of 44.736Mbps, has found extensive use in
providing high speed communications to large users such as corporations.

Fig.: North American digital hierarchy

 PDH in European
• The CEPT-1 (also referred to as E-1) signal is an European standard digital
hierarchy building block.

• It consists of 32 channels each with a capacity of 64Kbps.

 30 channels = used for voice channels

 1 channel = used for signaling

 1 channel = used for frame alignment and link maintenance

• The second, third and fourth levels of the hierarchy are obtained by grouping 4
of the signals in the lower level.
 PDH in European cont’d…
• The DS and CEPT-1 (E-1) hierarchy is known as the Plesiochronous digital
hierarchy (PDH)

Fig: European digital hierarchy

PDH in North American and European
 SDH and SONET Technologies
• SDH and SONET are standards for communicating large quantities of digital
information over optical fibers.

• Both SDH and SONET emerged between 1988 and 1992.

• ITU coordinates the development of SDH standards.

• SONET is the United States version of the standard published by the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI).

• They were developed to replace the Plesiochronous Digital hierarchy (PDH)

system for transporting large amounts of telephone and data traffic.
 SDH and SONET Signals
 The electrical side of the SONET signal is known as the synchronous transport
signal (STS).

 The electrical side of the SDH is known as the synchronous transport module
(STM).

 The optical side of a SONET/SDH signal is known as the optical carrier (OC).
 SDH and SONET Signals cont’d…
• The STS-1 signal with a bit rate of 51.84Mbps is the basic building block of the SONET
hierarchy.

• A higher level signal in the hierarchy is obtained by combining lower level component
signals.

• Each STS-n electrical signal has a corresponding OC-n signal.

• The bit format of STS-n and OC-n signals are the same except the use of scrambling
in the OC-n signal.

• The STM-1 signal with a bit rate of 155.52Mbps is the basic building block of the SDH
hierarchy.
SDH/SONET Digital Hierarchy
SONET Multiplexing
 cont’d…
 SONET/SDH is channelized as follows

 STS-3 consists of 3 STS-1 streams, and each STS-1 consists of a number of DS-1
and E1 signals.

 STS-12 consists of 12 STS-1 streams

 Concatenated structures (OC-3c, OC-12c, etc)

 The frame of the STS-3 payload is filled with ATM cells or IP packets packed in
PPP or HDLC frames.

 Concatenated SONET/SDH links are commonly used to interconnect ATM

switches and IP routers (Packets over SONET).
 The STS-1 Frame Structure

Table: STS-1 frame structure

 cont’d…
 Main features:

 The frame is presented in matrix form and it is transmitted row by row.

 Each cell in the matrix corresponds to a byte.

 The first three columns contain overheads.

 The remaining 87 columns carry the synchronous payload envelope (SPE),

which consists of user data, and additional overheads referred to as the
payload overhead (POH).
 Layers of SONET System
 A SONET system is divided into three layers: sections, lines and paths.

 Consider the following simple SONET network

 Layers of SONET cont’d…
 Section:

 A single link with a SONET device or a regenerator on either side of it.

 Line:

 A link between two SONET devices, which may include regenerators

 The section overhead in the SONET frame is associated with the transport
of STS-1 frames over a section, and the line overhead is associated with
the transport of SPEs over a line.
 SONET Stacks
 SONET is organized into a stack of four layers all embedded within the physical
layer:
 The Photonic Layer
 Section Layer
 Line Layer and
 Path Layer
 SONET Stacks
 Photonic Layer:
 Deals with the optical transmission of the STS frames.
 Section:
 Manages the transport of STS frames over the photonic layer
 It handles section error monitoring, framing and signal scrambling
 It also employs the section overheads
 Line:
 Handles the transport of the SPEs over a line.
 Its function is multiplexing and synchronization
 It also employs the line overhead
 Path:
 Processes the end to end transmission between the points where the SPE
originates and terminates
 SONET Stacks cont’d…
• A SONET system is divided into three layers: sections, lines and paths

Fig. SONET system layers

 SONET/SDH Devices
 Several different equipment exist for SONET/SDH digital hierarchy including:

 Regenerators

 Terminal multiplexer (TM)

 Add/drop multiplexer (ADM)

 Digital cross connect (DCS)

 Regenerators
 The Terminal Equipment
• It multiplexes a number of DS-n or E1 signals into a single OC-N signal

• It consists of a controller, low-speed interfaces for DS-n or E1 signals, an OC-

N interface, and a time slot interchanger (TSI).

• It works also as a Demultiplexer.

 The Add/Drop Multiplexer (ADM)
• It is a more complex version of the TM.

• It receives an OC-N signal from which it can demultiplex and terminate (i.e.,
drop) any number of DS-N or OC-M signals,

• where M<N, while at the same time it can add new DS-N and OC-M signals
into the OC-N signal.
 Cont’d…
 SONET or SDH ADM devices are typically interconnected to form a SONET or
an SDH ring.
• SONET/SDH rings are self-healing, that is they can automatically recover from link failures.

Fig. An example of SONET/SDH self-healing connection

 Digital Cross Connect (DXC)
• Multiple SONET/SDH rings are interconnected to cover a wide geographical
area via DXC
• A DCS is a more complex version of an ADM device
• It is connected to multiple incoming and outgoing OC-N interfaces.
• It can drop and add any number of DS-n and/or OC-M signals, and it can
switch DS-n and/or OC-M signals from an incoming interface to any outgoing
one.
 DXC Node
 DCS(DXC) node interconnecting two rings
 The DCS node receives STS-N frames from a ring
 From this it drops some tributaries and adds new ones generated from
local SONET devices attached to the DCS and the other ring
 The DCS node Adds/Drops virtual tributaries
 The added tributaries (STS-N frames) are transmitted out to the adjacent
ADM device on that ring
 The dropped virtual tributaries are either delivered to the local SONET
device or are switched to the other ring.
 SONET/SDH Network Configurations
• Point-to-point topology
 Simplest topology
 The point-to-point start and end on a PTE (Path Terminating Equipment),
which manages the mux/demux of tributaries
 No routing, and no demux along the path
 Regenerators may be used to cope with transmission problems
 Linear add-drop topology
• Still a linear topology
• ADM (and regenerators) along the line
• ADM allow to add and drop tributaries along the path
• ADM are designed to work in this kind of simple topologies which often
translates to rings
• There is no need to mux and demux in transit tributaries
 Hub network setup
• Typically on large aggregation point

• Adopt Digital Cross connect (DCX) working at high rate

• DCXs are much more complex than ADMs

 They have to manage both single tributary and SONET stream

 SONET Rings
• The most used topology. Can use two or four fibers and an ADM at each
node
• Bidirectional topology
• Simple protection functions against single failure
 Bidirectional ring becomes unidirectional ring