Bangladesh University of Professionals

Department of Information & Communication Technology

ICT4205: Multimedia Communication (3.0 Cr)

Course Teacher

Dr. Mohammad Junaebur Rashid (JR)

Associate Professor
Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
University of Dhaka

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Communication Networks
There are five basic types of communication networks
• Telephone networks
• Data networks
• Broadcast television networks
• Integrated services digital networks (Simultaneous transmission of voice, video, data)
• Broadband multiservice networks (to transfer a large volume of multi-format information)
Telephone Networks
• PSTN – Public switched telephone network
• In existence for many years and have gone through many changes
• Initially was designed to provide basic switched telephone service
• Subscriber can call any other connected to the total network.
• The technical operation of the PSTN adheres to the standards created by the ITU-T (ITU
Telecommunication Standardization Sector).
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• These standards allow different networks in different countries to interconnect seamlessly.
 Lecture 02 ICT4205: MC

Telephone Networks
• The E.163 and E.164 standards provide a single global address space for telephone
numbers.
• E.163 was the former ITU-T recommendation for describing telephone numbers for
the public switched telephone network (PSTN). In the United States, this was formerly
referred to as a directory number. E.163 was withdrawn, and some recommendations were
incorporated into revision 1 of E.164 in 1997.
• E.164 is an ITU-T recommendation, titled The international public telecommunication
numbering plan, that defines a numbering plan for the worldwide public switched telephone
network (PSTN) and some other data networks.
• E.164 defines a general format for international telephone numbers. Plan-conforming
numbers are limited to a maximum of 15 digits, excluding the international call prefix. The
number includes the country calling code.
• Mainly operates in circuit mode.
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Telephone Networks

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Digital Data over PSTN

• Modem is used for conversion between analog and digital
• Early modems data rate is 300 bps
• Later support 56 kbps
• Sufficient to support speech and low resolution video
• Advancement in digital
signal processing
• High speed modems (H-S
modems) support bit rate of
1.5 Mbps for high
resolution audio and video.

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Digital Data over PSTN

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Data Networks
• Data networks were designed to provide basic data communication services such as
electronic mail (email) and general file transfers.
• Equipment connected to such networks are computer, PC, workstations, or email/file
server.
• Two most likely deployed networks are X.25 network and the Internet.
• X.25 network is restricted to low bit rate data applications and hence is unsuitable for
most multimedia applications.
• The Internet is made up of a vast collection of interconnected networks which use the
same set of communication protocols.
• Communication protocol is an agreed set of rules that are adhered to by all
communicating parties for the exchange of information.
• Data transfer works in packet mode.

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 Lecture 02 ICT4205: MC

Data Networks
• PC with microphone and
speakers can operate for
telephony and other speech related
applications
• With video camera and other
hardware and software, video
applications are also possible

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Broadcast Television Networks

• Broadcast TV networks were designed to support the diffusion of analog TV (and radio)
programs throughout wide geographical areas.
• Large town/city the broadcast medium is normally a cable distribution network
• Larger areas use satellite network or terrestrial broadcast network
• Digital television services also available with these networks together with a low bit rate
return channel for interaction purposes
• Additional services such as games, home shopping possible.

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Broadcast Television Networks

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Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN)

• Deployed in the early 1980s to provide additional services to PSTN.
• Convert the access circuits that connect user equipment to the network into all-digital
form
• Provide two separate communication channel
• Provide telephone call and data call services
• With ISDN, the access circuit is known as digital subscriber line (DSL).
• Digitization of a telephone quality analog speech signal produces constant bit rate binary
system – bitstream of 64kbps
• Basic Rate Access- 64 kbps (2 channels)
• Primary Rate Access- 1.5 or 2Mbps
• Switched channel of p X 64 kbps, p=1,2,3,…,30

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Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN)

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Broadband Multiservice Networks

• Broadband multiservice networks were designed to support a wide range of multimedia
communication applications.
• The term “broadband” was used to indicate that the circuits associated with a call could
have bit rates in excess of the maximum bit rate 2Mbps (30 X 64 kbps) provided by an
ISDN. Data networks operate in packet mode.
• For multimedia applications, binary stream is divided into fixed sized packets known as
cells.
• Different multimedia applications generate different cell streams of different rates thus
asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks

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Broadband Multiservice Networks

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Multimedia Applications
• There are many and varied applications that involve multiple media types. In general, can
be places into 3 categories:
→ Interpersonal communications
→ Interactive applications over the Internet
→ Entertainment applications
Interpersonal communications
• May involve speech, image, text, or video.
• Some cases just a single type of medium while others two/more media types are
integrated together.
• Speech – uses the traditional PSTN
• Alternatively can use multimedia PC with software–computer telephony integration (CTI)

• Telephone over the internet is known as voice over IP (VoIP)

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Multimedia Applications

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Multimedia Applications

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Multimedia Applications
Interpersonal communications
• Image - Alternative form of interpersonal communications over a PSTN/ISDN is by using
facsimile or fax.
• Scan and digitize image of a document and transmit over the network.
• Text – involving electronic mail (email)
• Email server contains a mailbox for each user connected to a network.
• Speech and video – eg. Video telephony
• Requires higher bandwidth due to the integration of video and audio.
• Some networks such as LANs and the Internet support multicasting.
• Multicasting – transmission from any PCs/workstations belonging to a predefined
multicast group are received by all the other members of the group.
• Multicast is group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of
destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many
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distribution.
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Multimedia Applications

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Multimedia Applications

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Multimedia Applications
Speech and video

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Multimedia Applications

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Multimedia Applications
Interactive application over the internet

• Most widely used with a World Wide Web (WWW) or web.

• The web consists of inter-linkage multimedia information servers that are geographically
distributed around the Internet.

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Multimedia Applications

- Hypertext is text displayed

on a computer display or
other electronic devices with
references to other text that
the reader can immediately
access. 

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