PDH & SDH/SONET

By:
Engr. Sajjad Ali
Background
Before SDH, the first generation of fiber-optic systems
in the public telephone network used proprietary
architectures, equipment line codes, multiplexing
formats, and maintenance procedures.
The users of this equipment wanted standards so they
could fix and match equipment from different
suppliers.
The task of creating such a standard was taken up in
1984 by the Exchange Carriers Standards Association
(ECSA) in the U.S to establish a standard for
connecting one fiber system to another.
Meaning of:
Synchronous, Plesiochronous and Asynchronous
In a set of Synchronous signals, the digital transitions
in the signals occur at exactly the same rate. In a
synchronous network, all the clocks are traceable to
one Stratum 1 Primary Reference Clock (PRC).
If two digital signals are Plesiochronous, their
transitions occur “almost” at the same rate, with any
variation being constrained within tight limits. These
limits are set down in ITU-T recommendation G.811.
In a case of Asynchronous signals, the transitions of
the signals don’t necessarily occur at same nominal
rate.
SDH Need
Multi vendor interworking.
Synchronous: It allows single-stage multiplexing and
demultiplxing.
Ease of accessing channels.
SDH Need
Introduction to SDH
SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) is a standard for
telecommunications transport formulated by the
International Telecommunication union (ITU), previously
CCITT.
SDH was first introduced in 1992 and has been deployed
at all levels of the network infrastructure including
 Access Network
 Long Distance Trunk Network
 SDH is also defined for use on
 Radio Relay Links
 Satellite links
 Electrical Interfaces between equipments.
SDH ADVANTAGES
High transmission rates
Simplified add & drop function
High availability and capacity matching
Reliability
Future-proof platform for new services
Interconnection
SDH in terms of layer Model

PSTN/ISDN ATM I
P
VC-12 Layer
VC-4 Layer
Multiplex section
Regenerator Section
Physical Layer
 SDH Components and
Overhead Layers
Path
Multiplex Section Multiplex Section
Regenerator Section Regenerator Section

REG REG
PTE PTE
(ADM, ADM or (ADM,
DSLAM,… DCS DSLAM,…

Path Regenerator Multiplex Regenerator Path

Termination Section Section Section Termination
Termination Termination Termination

PTE = Path Terminating Element

Service (E1, E3…) MUX = Terminal Multiplexer Service (E1, E3…)
Mapping REG = Regenerator Mapping
Demapping ADM = Add/Drop Multiplexer Demapping
DCS = Digital Cross-Connect System
The STM-1 Frame Format
A frame with a bit rate of 155.52Mbps is defined in
ITU-T Recommendation G.707. This frame is called
Synchronous Transport Module(STM).
Made up from a byte matrix of 9 rows and 270
columns.
Transmission is row by row, starting with the byte in
the upper left corner and ending with the byte in the
lower right corner.
Frame repetition rate is 125µs.
Each byte in the payload represents a 64kbps channel.
STM-1 frames in transmission
 The Basic Building Block of SDH: STM-1
 Basic building block: SDH STM-1 frame
 9 columns of SDH transmission overhead (x9, byte rows) = 81 bytes
 261 cols of STM-1 “administrative units group (AUG)” (x9, byte rows) = 2349 bytes
 125 microseconds/frame = 155,52 (150,34) mbps

Section Trace
STM-1 AUG (261 Byte/Columns)
APS Signaling
J1
J1
Regenerator
A1
A1 A1
A1 A1
A1 A2
A2 A2
A2 A2
A2 J0
J0 xx xx Order of
Transmission
Section Overhead B1
B1 xx xx E1
E1 xx xx F1
F1 xx xx B3
B3
(3 Byte/Rows, 1
9 Columns) D1
D1 xx xx D2
D2 xx xx D3
D3 D2
D2 xx C2
C2

AU Pointers G1
G1
2
B2 B2 B2 K1 x x K2 x x F2
F2

Multiplex D4 x x D5 x x D6 x x H4
H4
Section Overhead
(5 Byte/Rows, D7 x x D8 x x D9 x x F3
F3
9 Columns)
D10 x x D11 x x D12 x x K3
K3
Bit Errors
S1 x x x x M1 E2 x x N1
N1

Total STM-1 Path Overhead

Path Signal Label
Transmission Overhead 1 Row x 9 Columns
9 Rows x 9 Columns
 STS-1 frame: Regenerator section overhead

17.13
 STS-1 frame: Multiplex section overhead/ line overhead

17.14
How are PDH and ATM signals are
transported by SDH?
PDH and ATM signals should be transported over the
SDH network.
The process of matching the signals to the network is
called mapping.
The container is the basic package unit for tributary
channels.
Inserting a 140 Mbps tributary into an STM-1
MAPPING OF PDH SIGNAL INTO SDH SIGNAL
Contd..