HKIVE (ST)

Dept. of Electronic and Information Engg. Page 1 Comm. Principles 1 / Chapter 7

TELEPHONY

Public telecommunication networks are originally
designed for telephony and are known as Public
Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). They are
digitized to provide a variety of teleservices and are
known as Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).

1 Network Structure

Since voice communications take minutes to finish one
call, star configuration is the best choice in term of cost.
This is applied to connection between telephone
terminals and local exchanges. The connections
between exchanges have a 'tree' modified hierarchical
structure. The exchange centers are classified into
different levels which depend on their sizes and
locations (Fig. 1.1, 1.2)

Primary Centers
Secondary Centers
Local Exchanges
Tertiary Centers


Fig. 1.1 Hierarchical Structure Conform to ITU-T
Recommendation
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Fig. 1.2 Example of Hierarchical Switching Networks

1.2 Standards

Standardization of international telecommunication is
carried by two sectors of International
Telecommunications Union (ITU), namely:

ITU Telecommunications Sector (ITU-T). Its duties
include the study of technical questions, operating
methods and tariffs for telephony, telegraphy and data
communications.

ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R). Its duties
include the study of technical questions, operating
methods and tariffs for radio communications.

A telecommunications network consists of the
following interacting subsystems:
(i) Transmission systems
(ii) Switching systems
(iii) Signalling systems
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2 Transmission Systems

Basic telephone service involves the transmission of
speech to a distance place. In analogue system, a
telephone line has a 300 to 3.4 kHz bandwidth mainly
for speech communication. PCM method is used to
convert analog speech to digital voice. They are then
time-division-multiplex TDM to form high capacity
trunk for transmission and switching.

2.1 Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)

It is an analog-to-digital conversion process that
converts analog signal into a format compatible with
digital transmission and switching.

Anti-
filter
Analog
signal
aliasing Compressor
Encoder
PCM
signal Quantizer
and A/D
Sampling
Line


Fig. 2.1 PCM Generation
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Sampling

It is a conversion of analog waveform into pulse
amplitude modulation (PAM) form where the amplitude
of the pulse denotes the analog amplitude at the
sampling time.

t
t
t
Analog waveform
Sampling Pulse
Resulting PAM
signal
f
s
1


Fig. 2.2 Sampling of Analog Signal

Fig. 2.3 shows the spectrum of the PAM. Fig. 2.4
shows that if the sampling rate is least than the double
of the signal bandwidth, distortion will result and this
distortion is called aliasing. Therefore, an anti-aliasing
filter is added before sampling to safe-guard the
bandwidth. This minimum sampling rate is known as
the Nyquist sampling rate:

f
s
= 2W (2.1)

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where W = bandwidth of the signal and
f
s
= sampling rate

Fig. 2.3 Spectrum of (a) the Modulating Signal and
(b) the PAM Wave



Fig. 2.4 (a) f
s
> 2W (b) f
s
< 2W

Quantization

It is the process of rounding off the amplitudes of the
samples to certain predetermined levels available to the
A/D converter.
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In Fig. 2.5(a), the straight line shows the linear input
and output relationship, and the staircase function
shows the quantized relationship. Fig. 2.5(b) shows the
quantization error as a function of input voltage. The
quantization error appears as noise after recovery and is
referred to as quantization noise.

The quantization error can lie between V/2, and
assuming it has a uniform probability density
distribution, the rms quantization error (noise) is

E
nq
=
12
V
see appendix (2.2)

where V = step size (resolution)

More generally, the ratio between the peak and rms
values of the signal voltage will be some value k =
E
rms
/E
max
. If distortion is to be avoided, the peak signal
level must not be allowed to exceed the peak input of
the quantizer.

E
max
=
2
L V


where L = total number of steps

The signal-to-quantization noise ratio in this case is

(S/N)
q
= E
rms
2
/E
nq
2
= 3k
2
L
2
(2.3)

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Fig. 2.5(a) Linear Quantization; (b) Quantization Error





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Sign-Magnitude Code

The MSB of the 8-bit codeword is the sign bit and the
remaining bits are the magnitude bit. The example
below show a 3-bit PCM code:

Sign Magnitude


1 11

1 10

1 01

1 00
0 00

0 01

0 10

0 11
0.5V
1.5V
2.5V
3.5V = E
max
-0.5V
-1.5V
-2.5V
-3.5V
Transfer Function Recovered
Voltage

3 V

2 V

1 V

0 V
0 V

-1 V

-2 V

-3 V
V

Fig. 2.6 Staircase Transfer Curve

From Fig. 2.6, it clearly shows that the total number of
step L:

L = 2
n
- 1 where n = no of bit per codeword (2.4)

Companding

With speech the peaks of the signal only infrequently
extend over the full range of the input. In effect, the
HKIVE (ST)
Dept. of Electronic and Information Engg. Page 9 Comm. Principles 1 / Chapter 7
signal does not have a uniform probability density
function, and the (S/N)
q
is lower than that given by Eq.
2.3. To compensate for this, compression is needed. It
has variable gain characteristics with a lower gain at
higher input.

If we keep the bits per sample fixed, then compression
will increase the S/N
q
for low amplitude signals and
will decrease S/N
q
for higher amplitude signals as
compared with the linear PCM. Ideal companded PCM
encodes signal levels with quantization error
proportional to signal level to keep the S/N
q
constant at
all amplitude levels.

In North America, -law compression characteristic is
used. In Europe and many other parts of the world, A-
law characteristic is used. They all use 8-bit
quantization.


Fig. 2.7 Compressor Characteristics of and A-law
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Fig. 2.8 Nonlinear Quantization

The reverse of compression is expansion. The
combined process is known as companding.

Some Important Data

With 3.4 kHz being the maximum voice frequency in
telephony, the standard sampling rate selected is
8,000 samples per second. With 8-bit quantizer, the
overall PCM data rate is 64 kbps.


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Line Encoding

It is used to convert standard logic levels to suitable
format for telephone line transmission. The followings
are some examples of line encoding method:
Line Encoding


Unipolar NRZ


Bipolar NRZ


Unipolar RZ


Bipolar RZ


AMI
0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1
0 V
+2 V
+1 V
-1 V
0 V
+2 V
0 V
-1 V
+1 V
0 V
-1 V
+1 V


NRZ = Non-Return-to-Zero
RZ = Return-to-Zero
AMI = Alternate Mark Inversion

Fig. 2.9 Line Encoding Methods


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Major factors in selecting a line encoding format:

Transmit Power

Unipolar uses more power than the bipolar methods.

DC Component

Unipolar methods have DC components whilst bipolar
methods have not. The presence of DC in the signal
does not favour the use of transformer for isolation.

Clock Recovery

Bipolar RZ has the highest voltage transitions
which is the best for clock recovery.
Unipolar RZ and AMI lack of transitions for long
strings of zero.
NRZ lacks of transitions for long strings of zero
and one.

Bandwidth

The bandwidth of RZ doubles to that of NRZ and AMI.

Error Detection

AMI possesses error detection ability while all others
do not.

The conclusion is that AMI is the best line encoding
method among all others in our example.

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2.2 Time-Division Multiplexing

In the European digital hierarchy, it uses the ITU-T 30
PCM voice channels to form the primary multiplex
carrier and has a data rate of 2.048Mbps.

30-channel Frame Format

Fig. 2.10 shows the ITU-T 2.048 Mbps
recommendation. Sixteen frames form a multi-frame
and in each frame, there are 32 eight-bit time slots, 30
for PCM voices, one for synchronization and one for
channel signalling.

1 2 3 4 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 28 29 30 31 0 0 1
1 3 5 7 2 4 6 8 8-bit PCM
One frame, 256 bits, 125usecs
ch 1 2 .... 15 16 .... 17 18 .... 30 ....
Synchronization
channel
Next frame
Signalling
channel


Fig. 2.10 30 Channels PCM Multiplexing

One frame contains one sample per user, therefore

Sampling rate = Frame rate = 8k per second
Frame duration = 1/8k = 125 s

Total number of bit per frame = 32 8 = 256 bits

Multiplex data rate = 256 /125 s = 2.048 Mbps

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Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy (PDH)

Higher-order digital multiplex systems are first based
on PDH since all the primary inputs operate from
independent clock sources. It operates at 2.048M,
8.448M, ... , multiplex hierarchy.

Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH)

It is for fully digitized networks operating
synchronously using high-capacity optical-fiber
transmission systems and TDM switching. It operates
at basic rate of 155.52Mbps and multiplexes by factor
of 4. Any of the existing plesiochronous rates up to
140Mbps can be multiplexed into the SDH.

24-channel Frame Format

The other common multiplex format is the 24-channel
multiplexing used in USA.

2 3 4 5 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 21 22 23 24 1 1 2
1 3 5 7 2 4 6 8 8-bit PCM
One frame, 193 bits, 125usecs
Synchronization Bit
Next frame

Fig. 2.11 24 Channels PCM Multiplexing

Total number of bit per frame = 24 8 + 1 = 193 bits

Multiplex data rate = 193 /125 s = 1.544 Mbps
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3 Switching

3.1 Single-stage Space Switch

It is a simple full-matrix switch. However, a large
switch system cannot be formed simply using full-
matrix switches because the number of crosspoints N
2
is
huge when N is large.

1
2
N
1 2 N
N x N
:
:
....


Fig. 3.1 (a) Matrix switch (b) Symbol

Concentrator and Expander

N x N N x N N x N
. . . . .
1 2 M
N M x N
(a)
N M x N
Concentrator Expander
(b)


Fig. 3.2 (a) Concentrator and Expander using Square
Matrix Switches; (b) Symbolic Representations

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3.2 A General Trunking

In order to utilize the switching network more
effectively, the low-usage subscriber lines are grouped
into high-usage trunk-groups before switching.

Switching
Concentrator
Subscriber
lines
Expander
Incoming
Junctions
Outgoing
Junctions
Central control

Fig. 3.3 General Trunking for a Switching System

3.3 Two-stage Space Switch Network

To reduce the total number of crosspoints, multi-stage
switch network is constructed using smaller matric
switches. The method is illustrated in Fig. 3.4 with a
10 10 matrix switch as the basic building block.

The basic design criterion is that the number of link
(intermediate connections) should be equal to the
number of trunk (incoming or outgoing connections).
This ensures the utilization of links will not be under or
over to that of the trunks. This leads to:
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The matrix switch should be square, i.e., N N

The optimum N = Trunk of . No (3.1)

10x 10
10x 10
10x 10
10x 10
(10)
(10)
100 incoming 100 outgoing
trunks trunks
link


Fig. 3.4 Two-stage Switch Network

The blocking probability is high since there is only one
link between any two input and output building blocks.

3.4 Three-stage Space Switch Network

Three-stage network resolves or reduces network
blockage by the introduction of additional stage in the
middle. In Fig. 3.5, there are ten intermediate links
instead of one in the 2-stage network.

10x 10
(10)
100 incoming
10x 10
trunks
10x 10
(10)
100 outgoing
10 x 10
trunks
10x 10
(10)
10x 10

Fig. 3.5 Example of 3-stage Switch Network

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3.5 Time Switching

If TDM transmission is used with space switching (Fig.
3.6), it is necessary to provide de-multiplexing and
multiplexing equipment before and after switching. If
time switching is employed (Fig. 3.7), the multiplex
links can be switched directly.

Space-
division
switch
Incoming
PCM
trunks
PCM
muldexes
Outgoing
PCM
trunks
PCM
muldexes


Fig. 3.6 Space Switching with PCM

Time-
division
switch
Outgoing
PCM
trunks
Incoming
PCM
trunks


Fig. 3.7 Time Switching with PCM

The principle of a time switch is shown in Fig. 3.8.
Since any incoming channel can be connected to any
outgoing channel, it is equivalent to an N N matrix
switch.
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0
1
2
3
X
Cyclic
write
From input
trunk
Decoder
Speech
store
Connection
store
S p e e c h
address of x
0
1
2
3
Y
Random
read
indirectly
To output
trunk


Fig. 3.8 Operation of a Time Switch

Time switching and space switching are used together
in tandem switch and are known as Time-Space-Time
(TST) switching (Fig. 3.9).

m outgoing
trunks
m incoming
trunks
Time
switch
n n
Time
switch
n n
Space
switch
m m
Time
switch
n n
Time
switch
n n


Fig. 3.9 TST Switch Network m = no. of PCM trunks,
n = no. of timeslots.

HKIVE (ST)
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Time switch doesn't have the size problem when
compared with space switch. It can be expanded
rapidly by increasing the memory size and the operating
speed. However, time switch has the problem of
delay. Each time switch will introduce at most 125 s
delay time.

4 Signalling

To maintain smooth operations of a telephone network,
there are a lot of signalling information needed to be
sent through the telephone network. When the signals
are sent along with the same voice circuits, this is
known as channel-associated signalling. However, it
is more efficient for the central processor of one
exchange to send information to the other exchange
through separate high-speed data link, and this is known
as common-channel signalling. An example is the
timeslot-16 of European primary muliplex. It provides
a 64 kbps common-channel for signalling between
processors.
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Appendix

From Fig. 2.13(b), we find the relationship to describe
the error voltage:

y =
2
V
- x for 0 < x <
2
V


Mean square of quantization error, E
nq
2


=
2
V
dx x
2
V
2
V
0
2

|
.
|

\
|

|
|
.
|

\
|
+

2
V
0
2
2
dx x Vx
4
V
V
2


=
2
V
0
3
2
2
3
x
x
2
V
x
4
V
V
2

(

=
(

24
V
8
V
8
V
V
2
3 3 3
=
12
V
2

References

1. JE Flood, Telecommunications Switching, Traffic and Networks, Prentice
Hall, 1995
2. RF Freeman, Telecommunication System Engineering, Wiley, 2
nd
edition
3. Roddy & Coolen, Electronic Communications, Prentice Hall, 4
th
edition

End