TELEPHONY

Reference: Telecommunication System Engineering

By Roger Freeman
Chapter 1&3
Public Switched Telephone Networks
(PSTNs)
• The telephone is connected to PSTN for local, national , and
international voice communications
• The same connections can carry data and image information
• Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTNs) provide raw, voice-
grade bandwidth channels of 4 kHz, with 3 kHz (300-3300 Hz) used
for voice transmission and the balance used for signaling and control
purposes and for guard bands for signal separation when multiple
analog voice channels are multiplexed.
Public Switched
Telephone Network
• Computers are used to control the switching functions of a central
office

Local loop is analog .

Trunk line is digital .
Interexchange circuit is digital
Telephone system components

• 1. End systems
• 2. Transmission
• 3. Switching
• 4. Signaling
 Subscriber Loop Design Techniques
• The distance D, the loop length, is a critical parameter. The greater the
value of D, the greater the attenuation that the loop suffers, and signal
level drops as a result.
• the greater the wire diameter of the loop pair, the less resistance there
is per unit length; also, the less attenuation there is per unit length.
• When designing a subscriber loop there are two variables that must be
established:
• (1) The maximum loop resistance. One current value that comes to
mind is 2400 .
• (2) The maximum loss or attenuation on the loop. In Europe, 6 dB is
commonly used for this value. This is 6 dB at the reference frequency
of 800 Hz. In North America the reference frequency is 1000 Hz. The
loss value may be as high as 9 dB.
Calculating the Resistance Limit
• To calculate the dc loop resistance for copper conductors, the following formula is
applicable

• where Rdc is the loop resistance in ohms per mile (statute) and d is the diameter of
the conductor (in inches).
 Calculating the Loss Limit.
• Attenuation or loop loss is the basis of transmission design of subscriber
loops.
• The attenuation of a wire pair varies with frequency, resistance,
inductance, capacitance, and leakage conductance
• Table 2.4 also gives losses of some common subscriber cable per 1000 ft.
• If we are limited to 6 dB (loss) on a subscriber loop, then by simple
division we can derive the maximum loop length permissible for
transmission design considerations for the wire gauges shown.
Switching and Multiplexing
• Two breakthroughs in telephony were the advent of
automatic crossbar switching and the ability to do
statistical multiplexing on transmission lines.
• The notion of carrying traffic other than voice (data
and video) also began with the automatic crossbar
switches
 What is switching?
• On each telephone call, a talking path must be set up between the calling and
the called telephone.
• Switches are devices that cause a connection between two
transmitting/receiving devices.
The number of connections needed is visualized as follows:

# of phones # of connections
2 1 e.g 4 phones

3 3
4 6 1
5 10
N N(N-1)/2

If N>> then # of connections ≈ N2

Circuit-Switching
• Circuit switching creates a direct physical connection between
two devices such as phones or computers.
• We can use switches to reduce the number and length of links.
 Switching Systems

Manual Automatic

Electro
Electronic
Mechanical

Strowger or Space Division Time Division

Crossbar
Step by step Switch Switch

Digital Analog

Combinational
Space Switch
Switch

Time Switch
Electronic Switching System (ESS)
• An electronic switching system (ESS) in telecommunications is a
telephone switch which helps in establishing phone calls with the help
of computerized systems capable of interconnecting telephone circuits
and digital electronics.
• The invention of the transistor helped in the development of electronic
switching systems.
• The electronic switching system is capable of troubleshooting on its
own and can identify problems.
 Crossbar Switch
• A telephony crossbar switch is an electromechanical
device for switching telephone calls.
• A crossbar switch (also known as cross-point switch, or
matrix switch) is a switch connecting multiple inputs to
multiple outputs in a matrix manner.
• Today many different types of automated switches are
used which make it possible for fast placement of calls.
• A crossbar switch with N input lines and N output lines contains an
N x N array of cross points that connect each input line to one output
line. In modern switches, each cross point is a semiconductor gate.
3-stage switch (Clos Switch) (Space Division
Switch)
• Clos network is a multistage switching network.
• The advantage of such network is that connection between a large number
of input and output ports can be made by using only small-sized switches
• there is exactly one connection between each ingress (input) stage switch
and each middle stage switch.
• And each middle stage switch is connected exactly once to each egress
(output) stage switch.
• Total number of cross points = 2m(n*k)+km2
= 2Nk+k(N/n)2

• E.g: Compare the number of cross points needed if N=20000 when using a
single stage crossbar switch and a 3-stage switch with n=100 and k=200
Single stage : # of cross points = N2 =400*106
3-stage: # of cross points = 2*20000*200+200*(20000/100)2
=16*106
Saving in # of cross points = 400*106- 16*106
=384 *106 cross points
System Signaling (Inter-office Signaling)

• In addition to carrying the actual voice signals, the telephone

system must also carry information about the call itself.
• Signaling is the exchange of information between involved
points in the network that sets up, controls, and terminates each
telephone call
• There are two approaches to system signaling: in band and out
of band
• In in-band signaling , the signaling is on the same channel as
the telephone call. In out-of-band signaling , signaling is on
separate channels dedicated for the purpose.
Making a Connection
• Accessing the switching station at the end offices is accomplished through dialing.
• In the past, telephones featured rotary or pulse dialing, in which a digital signal was sent
to the end office for each number dialed. This type of dialing was prone to errors due to
the inconsistency of humans during the dialing process.
• Today, dialing is accomplished through the touch-tone technique. In this method, instead
of sending a digital signal, the user sends two small bursts of analog signals, called dual
tone. The frequency of the signals sent depends on the row and column of the pressed pad.
• Pressing number 8 will generate two bursts of analog signals with frequencies 852 and
1336 Hz to the end office.
 Time division multiplexing(TDM)
TDM can be used with digital signals
or analog signals carrying digital
data.
In this form of multiplexing, data
from various sources are carried in
repetitive frames.

Each frame consists of a set of time

slots, and each source is assigned
one or more time slots per frame.

The effect is to interleave bits of data

from the various sources.
Time Division Multiplexing
• Channel gets the whole spectrum for a certain
amount of time
• Advantages:
Channels ki
• only one carrier in the
medium at any time k1 k2 k3 k4 k5 k6
c

f
• Disadvantages:
• precise
synchronization
necessary
t
T-1 line for multiplexing telephone lines
 FDM versus TDM

FDM TDM
 Synchronous TDM
• In synchronous TDM, each input connection has an allotment in the output even if
it is not sending data.
• In synchronous TDM, the data rate of the link is n times faster, and the unit
duration is n times shorter
Interleaving
 TST switch
• Combine Space division and time division switching.
• This results in switches that are optimized both physically (the number of
crosspoints) and temporally (the amount of delay).
• Various types are: time-space-time (TST), time-space-space-time (TSST),
space-time-time-space (STTS), etc.
 Empty Slots
• Synchronous TDM is not as efficient as it could be. If a source does not have data to
send, the corresponding slot in the output frame is empty. The following figure
shows a case in which one of the input lines has no data to send and one slot in
another input line has discontinuous data.
•
Example
• In Figure 6.13, the data rate for each input connection is 1 kbps. If 1 bit at a time is
multiplexed (a unit is 1 bit), what is the duration of
• 1. each input slot,
• 2. each output slot, and
• 3. each frame?
• Solution
• 1. The data rate of each input connection is 1 kbps. This means that the bit
duration is 1/1000 s or 1 ms. The duration of the input time slot is 1 ms (same as
bit duration).
• 2. The duration of each output time slot is one-third of the input time slot. This
means that the duration of the output time slot is 1/3 ms.
• 3. Each frame carries three output time slots. So the duration of a frame is 3 * 1/3
ms, or 1 ms. The duration of a frame is the same as the duration of an input unit.
 Example
• Figure 6.14 shows synchronous TDM with a data stream for each input and one
data stream for the output. The unit of data is 1 bit. Find
• (1) the input bit duration, (2) the output bit duration,
• (3) the output bit rate, and (4) the output frame rate.
 Solution
• 1. The input bit duration is the inverse of the bit rate: 1/1 Mbps
= 1 μs.
• 2. The output bit duration is one-fourth of the input bit duration,
or 1/4 μs.
• 3. The output bit rate is the inverse of the output bit duration, or
1/4 μs or 4 Mbps.
• 4. The frame rate is always the same as any input rate. So the
frame rate is 1,000,000 frames per second.
• Because we are sending 4 bits in each frame, we can verify the
result of the previous question by multiplying the frame rate by
the number of bits per frame.
 Example
• Four 1-kbps connections are multiplexed together. A unit is 1 bit. Find
(1) the duration of 1 bit before multiplexing,
(2) the transmission rate of the link,
(3) the duration of a time slot, and
(4) the duration of a frame.
• Solution
• We can answer the questions as follows:
• 1. The duration of 1 bit before multiplexing is 1/1 kbps, or 0.001 s (1 ms).
• 2. The rate of the link is 4 times the rate of a connection, or 4 kbps.
• 3. The duration of each time slot is one-fourth of the duration of each bit before
multiplexing, or 1/4 ms or 250 μs.
• 4. The duration of a frame is always the same as the duration of a unit before
multiplexing, or 1 ms. We can also calculate this in another way. Each frame in this
case has four time slots. So the duration of a frame is 4 times 250 μs, or 1 ms.
• The amount of data that can be transmitted using TDM is given by the
MUX output rate and is defined by
• MUX output rate = N × Maximum input rate
• where N is the number of input channels and the maximum input rate is
the highest data rate in bits/second of the various inputs.
• The bandwidth of the communication channel must be at least equal to
the MUX output rate.
• Another parameter commonly used in describing the information
capacity of a TDM system is the channel-switching rate. This is equal to
the number of inputs visited per second by the MUX and is defined as
• Channel switching rate = Input data rate × Number of channels