Overview on Telephone
Network
- the traditional
telecommunication network
The following slides are largely based on the book: S. Keshav, “An
Engineering Approach to Computer Networking”, Addison
Wesley.
The Invention of the Telephone
When?
¾ March 10, 1876.
Who invented the telephone?
Alexander Graham
Bell speaking into
prototype telephone.
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The First Voice Message
Mr. Watson, come here.
I want to see you.
Speaking through the instrument
to his assistant, Thomas A.
Watson, in the next room, Bell
said these famous first words.
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Telephone Exchange: 1878
(1878) Bell set up
the first telephone
exchange over a
manual switchboard
A telephone operator
manually connected calls
with patch cables at a
telephone switchboard.
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From Analog to Digital (1960’s)
1962 The first digital T-carrier system
was introduced into commercial
service by AT&T.
1960s Telephone network was the world’s
dominant communication network.
Circuit Switching is used:
¾ When there is a call, a path from source to
destination is set up.
¾ The bandwidth of the path is reserved for
the calling parties for the whole of the call.
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Example: Circuit Switching
For host A to
send messages
to B, the
network must
reserve one
circuit on each
of two links.
Each link can
have more than
1 circuit. How?
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Why Circuit Switching?
A telephone call typically lasts for a long
time
¾ it justifies the cost of setting up a circuit
before transmission.
Voice signal is of constant bit rate (e.g.
64 kbps for PCM).
¾ Circuit switching simplifies the allocation of
bandwidth.
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Computer Networks
1960s Computers became important.
How to connect computers together?
Is circuit switching appropriate?
¾ Data traffic are typically bursty.
¾ Typical Scenario:
) Sending a command to a remote computer
) A period of inactivity
) Sending another command
¾ Assigning a dedicated channel wastes bandwidth.
Packet switching was invented for this reason.
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Learning objectives
Know
the simplified view of a typical telephone network
how to route a call in telephone core network
the essential issue/problem for routing a call
features of telephone network routing
the fundamental concepts for “transmission”
why switching is needed instead of having a link for
each pair of users
the job of a signaling network
how the state transition diagram can help a switch
controller to decide what action to take according to the
incoming signal 9
Concepts
Single basic service: two-way voice
¾ lowend-to-end delay
¾ guarantee that an accepted call will run to
completion
Endpoints connected by a circuit
¾ likean electrical circuit
¾ signals flow both ways (full duplex)
¾ associated with bandwidth and buffer
resources 10
The big picture
Fully connected core
¾ simple routing
¾ telephone number is a hint about how to route a call
¾ hierarchically allocated telephone number space
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The basic elements
1. Routing
2. Switching
3. Transmission
4. Signaling
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Two Key Network Functions
routing: determine analogy: Traveling
route taken by data
from source to routing: process of
destination planning trip from
source to destination
¾ routing algorithms
switching: move data switching: process of
from switch’s input to getting through single
appropriate switch’s interchange
output
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1. Routing: Telephone network
topology
3-level hierarchy, with a fully-connected core
AT&T: 135 core switches with nearly 5 million circuits
Local Exchange Carriers (LEC) may connect to multiple
cores
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Routing algorithm
If endpoints are within same Central Office (CO),
directly connect
If call is between COs in same LEC, use one-hop (or
the shortest) path between COs
Otherwise send call to one of the cores
Only major decision is at core/toll switch
¾ one-hop or two-hop path to the destination toll switch
¾ (why don’t we use paths with more than two hops?)
Essence of problem/issue
¾ which two-hop path to use if one-hop direct path is full?
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Features of telephone network
routing
Stable load
¾ can predict network load throughout the day
¾ can choose optimal routes in advance
Extremely reliable switches
¾ downtime is less than a few minutes per year
¾ can assume that a chosen route is available
¾ can’t do this in the Internet
Single organization controls entire core
¾ can collect global statistics and implement global changes
Very highly connected network
Connections require resources (but all need the same)
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2. Switching: motivation
Problem:
¾ each user can potentially call any other
user
¾ can’t have direct lines! (Why?)
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Why switching is needed instead of having a
link for each pair of users?
A number of
terminals connected
with each other
To fully connect
n terminals, how many
links are needed?
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Star Topology
Switch / Router
No. of links can
be reduced
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A 2-Tier Network
A larger network
may be constructed
recursively in the
same way.
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Switching
Switches establish temporary circuits
Switching systems come in two parts: switch
and switch controller
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Switching: what does a switch do?
Transfers data from an input to an
appropriate output
Some ways to switch:
¾ space division
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Switching
Another way to switch
¾ time division (time slot interchange or TSI)
To build larger switches we combine space
and time division switching elements
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3. Transmission
Link characteristics
¾ information carrying capacity (bandwidth)
) information sent as symbols
) 1 symbol >= 1 bit
¾ propagation delay
) time for electromagnetic signal to reach other
end
) light travels at 0.7c in fiber ~8 microseconds/mile
) NY to SF => 20 ms; NY to London => 27 ms
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Transmission: Multiplexing
What is multiplexing?
¾ Enabling a number of lower bit rate connections to
share a single higher bit rate transmission line.
Frequency-Division Multiplexing (FDM)
¾ Applies to both analog and digital signals
¾ e.g. 4 kHz for each analog voice signal
Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM)
¾ Applies only to digital signals
¾ e.g. digital voice using pulse-coded modulation
(PCM)
) Sampling: 8 kHz, and Quantization: 8 bits per
sample => Bit Rate: 64 kbps 25
Multiplexing: FDM and TDM
Example:
FDM
4 users
frequency
time
TDM
frequency
time 26
Transmission: Multiplexing
Multiplexed trunks can be multiplexed further
Need a standard! (why?)
US/Japan standard is called Digital Signaling
hierarchy (DS)
Digital Signal Number of Number of voice Bandwidth
Number previous level circuits
circuits
DS0 1 64 Kbps
DS1 24 24 1.544Mbps
DS2 4 96 6.312 Mbps
DS3 7 672 44.736 Mbps
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Transmission: Link technologies
Many in use today
¾ twisted pair
¾ coax cable
¾ terrestrial microwave
¾ satellite microwave
¾ optical fiber
¾ ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines ): the
most chosen broadband option in the world (more
than 60% of the broadband market)
Increasing amount of bandwidth and cost per foot
Popular
¾ fiber
¾ ADSL 28
Transmission: Analogue to Digital
Conversion
To represent an infinite precision signal
originally in an analogue form by a finite
set of numbers at a fixed sample rate
Two steps:
¾ sampling
¾ quantization
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Transmission: Sampling
The sampling process leads to the PAM (pulse amplitude
modulation) representation of the analogue signal 30
Transmission: Uniform Quantization
• Samples are quantized to the nearest quantization level
• PAM + quantization ⇒ PCM (pulse code modulation) 31
Transmission: Non-uniform Quantization
Signal compression + uniform quantization ⇒
non-uniform quantization
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Transmission: Ways of Compression
μ law
ln(1 + μ x )
f μ ( x) = sgn( x)
ln(1 + μ )
A law
Ax 1
f A ( x) = sgn( x) 0≤ x ≤
1 + ln( A) A
1 + ln Ax 1
f A ( x) = sgn( x) ≤ x ≤1
1 + ln( A) A
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Transmission: Voice Coding
To represent the digitized voice signal
at a reduced bit rate for narrowband
transmission and digital storage devices
with limited capacity
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Transmission: Codecs in ITU standards
G.711
¾ approved in 1965
¾ PCM, μ law or A law
¾ 8000 sample per second
¾ each sample is encoded as an octet
¾ 64 kb/s
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G.722
¾ approved in 1988
¾ provides a higher quality of digital encoding
of 7 kHz of audio spectrum
¾ support a number of rates: 48, 56 or 64
kb/s, using SB-ADPCM (subband -
adaptive differential PCM)
¾ good for all professional conversational
voice applications, but musical applications
are not recommended
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G.726
¾ approved in 1990
¾ rates in 16, 24, 32 or 40 kb/s, using
ADPCM (adaptive differential PCM)
¾ the quality at 32 kb/s is taken as a
reference for toll quality
G.728
¾ approved in 1992-94
¾ 16 kb/s, using LD-CELP (low delay, code-
excited linear prediction)
¾ quality similar to G.726
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G.723.1
¾ approvedin 1995
¾ two modes of operation
) 6.4 kb/s, using MP-MLQ (multipulse-maximum
likelihood quantization)
) 5.3 kb/s, using ACELP (algebraic-code-excited
linear prediction)
¾ has a voice activity detection,
discontinuous transmission, comfort noise
generation capability
¾ 1.1 kb/s during silence period
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G.729
¾ approved in 1995
¾ 8 kb/s, using ABS CS-ACELP (analysis by
sythesis, conjugate structure – ACELP)
¾ there is a low-complexity version G.729A,
which is sometimes used in VoIP systems
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Transmission: Codecs from ETSI
(Europe)
GSM 06.10
¾ Approved in 1988
¾ 13 kb/s, using RPE-LTP (regular pulse excitation –
long term prediction)
¾ used in cellular mobile system
GSM 06.60
¾ Approved in 1996
¾ 12.2 kb/s, using ACELP
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Transmission: Codec from IETF
iLBC (internet Low Bitrate Codec)
¾ 13.33 kb/s, LPC and block based coding of
the LPC residual signal using an adaptive
codebook
¾ basic quality higher than G.729A, high
robustness to packet loss
¾ computational complexity in the range of
G.729A
¾ royalty free codec
¾ [Link]
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4. Signaling
Recall that a switching system has a switch
and a switch controller
Switch controller is in the control plane
¾ does not touch voice samples
Manages the network
¾ call routing (collect dialstring and forward call)
¾ alarms (trigger the ring at receiver)
¾ billing
¾ directory lookup (for 800/888 calls)
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Signaling network
Switch controllers are special purpose
computers
Linked by their own internal computer
network
¾ Common Channel Interoffice Signaling (CCIS)
network
Messages on CCIS conform to Signaling
System 7 (SS7) spec.
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Signaling
One of the main jobs of switch controller:
keep track of state of every endpoint and take
action according to the incoming signal
Key is state transition diagram
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Q&A
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