Telecommunication Network

Switching system
• The switching stations provide connection between different subscribers
• . The switching systems are connected using lines called the Trunks. The lines that
run to the Subscriber premises are called the Subscriber Lines.
Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN)
• Collection of interconnected voice-oriented public telephone networks. PSTN
stands for public switched telephone network, or the traditional circuit-switched
telephone network.
• Also known as plain old telephony system (POTS) is basically interconnected
telephony systems over which telephone calls are made via copper wires.
• The lines within a local exchange typically have the same area code. A user who
wants to call a number outside the local exchange has to add an area code. To
make an international call, a user has to dial the country code
• The individual subscriber lines are connected to a local exchange, which
communicates with trunk exchanges as well as central exchanges.
• A PSTN is made up of switches at centralized points on a network that function
as nodes to enable communication between two points on the network.
PSTN Cont..
PSTN Network
PSTN Cont..
PSTN Switching Levels
The Local Exchange
• Local Exchange (LE) or End Office provides network access for the subscriber. It is
located at the bottom of the network hierarchy.
• All telephones are connected to the local exchange in a specific area.
• The first three digits of a phone number represent the exchange (the local
switch), while the last four digits identify the individual subscriber within that
exchange.
The Tandem Office
• Connects Eos or LEs together, providing an aggregation (summing) point for traffic
between them. In some cases, the Tandem node provides the EO access to the
next hierarchical level of the network.
PSTN Switching Levels
• a tandem office serves a large geographical area comprising several local
exchanges while managing switches between local exchanges.
The Toll Office
• Provides an interface to another hierarchical network level. Transit or Toll
switches are generally used to aggregate traffic that is carried across long
geographical distances.
• A toll office is connected to all the tandem offices. For instance, if you have an
office in another city you’ll find that, whenever you dial that branch’s number,
your call will be switched through a toll office.
The International Gateway
• International gateways manage international call switching, routing domestic calls
to the appropriate countries
PSTN Hierarchy
PSTN Cont..
• A National public switched telecommunication network consists of:
Local Networks:
• Connects customers stations to their local exchanges
• These are also called subscribers
Junction Networks:
• Interconnects a group of local exchanges serving as area and a tendom
trunk exchange
Trunk Network or Toll Network:
• Which provide long distance circuits between local areas throughout the
country.
PSTN Network
PSTN Network
• Approximately, all the exchanges of PSTN have been digital
• However, there exist still analog phones
• Natural connection to the modern PSTN is the ISDN-interface

Country-level

Region-level

City-level
Switching System
• Switches are hardware and software devices capable of creating temporary
connection between two and more devices linked to switch but not each other. It
is a device which connects multiple communication lines together.
• Connecting the calling party with the called party. This may involve the use of one
or more switches.
• Lines or wires from everybody’s house go into the switch.
• When a call is placed, the switch creates a temporary link between these lines.
Need of Switching
• First telephone line was point to point dedicated connection.
• This type of network provided high reliability, security but with the
increase in subscriber become very complex and costly.
• As number of subscribers and distances increases ,it fails to provide
sufficient service.
• On the other hand manual switching are porn to errors and lack of
privacy.
• For these reasons we invented automatic switching systems.
Point to point lines
• If there are 5 entities and 10 points to point links. In a general case
with n entities, there are n(n-1)/2 links
• Total No of entities = n
• In order to connect the first entity to all other entities we require (n-
1) links. Total No of links will be
L = (n-1) + (n-2) + (n-3) + …..+1+0 = n(n-1)/2
Switching Types
Circuit Switching
• Circuit switching implies the need to first set up a dedicated, end-to-end path for
the connection before the information transfer takes place.
• Three phases
• Establish
• Transfer
• Disconnect
• Must have switching capacity and channel capacity to establish connection
• Reduces the number and the total length of the links
• Example : Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN)
• Once the connection is made the only delay is propagation time.
Message Switching
• In message switching, the whole message is treated as a data unit. The data is
transferred in its entire circuitry.
• A switch working on message switching, first receives the whole message and
buffers it until there are resources available to transfer it to the next hop.
• If the next hop is not having enough resource to accommodate large size
message, the message is stored and the switch waits.
• In this technique, the data is stored and forwarded. The technique is also called
the Store-and-Forward technique.
• Since messages can be quite large, this can cause:
• buffering problems
• high mean delay times
Drawbacks
• Message switching has the following drawbacks :
• Every switch in the transit path needs enough storage to
accommodate the entire message.
• Because of the waiting included until resources are available,
message switching is very slow.
• Message switching was not a solution for streaming media and real-
time applications.
Packet Switching
• The packet switching technique is derived from message switching where the
message is broken down into smaller chunks called Packets.
• The header of each packet contains the switching information which is then
transmitted independently. The header contains details such as source,
destination and intermediate node address information.
• The intermediate networking devices can store small size packets and don’t take
many resources either on the carrier path or in the internal memory of switches.
• The packet switching technique was proved to be an efficient technique and is
being widely used in both voice and data transfer.
Datagram vs Virtual Circuit
Datagram
• Each datagram packet may be individually routed. (connection less services)
• Each Independent entity is called datagram
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediary devices
uses this information to forward datagram to right destination
• In datagram packet switching, path is not fixed.
Datagram vs Virtual Circuit
Virtual Circuit
• Virtual circuit set up is required.(connection oriented services)
• All packets in a virtual circuit follow the same path.
• Call request and call accept packets are used to establish the connection
between sender and receiver.
Basics of Switching System
• A major component of a switching system or an exchange is the set of input and
output circuits called inlets (N) and outlets(M).
• The primary function of a switching system is to establish an electrical path
between a given inlet-outlet pair.
• The hardware used for establishing such a connection is called the switching
matrix or the switching network
• When N = M, the switching network is called a symmetric network.
• The hardware used to establish connection between inlets and outlets is called
the Switching Matrix or the Switching Network. This switching network is the
group of connections formed in the process of connecting inlets and outlets.
Hence, it is different from the telecommunication network mentioned above.
Functions of Switching System
1. Attending: The system must be continually monitoring all lines to detect call
request.
2. Information Receiving: In addition to receiving call the system must receive
information from the caller as to the called line required. The is called address
signal.
3. Information Processing: The system must process the information received, in
order to determine the actions to be performed and to control these action.
Since both originating and terminating calls are handled differently for different
customers, class of service information must be processed in addition to
address information.
4. Busy Testing: Having processed the received information to determine the
required outgoing circuit the system must make a busy test to determine
whether it is free or already engaged on another call.
Functions of Switching system
5. Interconnection: For call between two customers, three connection are made in the
following sequence:
a. A connection to calling terminal
b. A connection to called terminal
c. A connection between two terminals.
6. Altering: Having made the connection, the system sends a signal to alert the called
customer to the call, e.g by sending ringing current to a customers telephone.
7. Supervision: After the called terminal has answered, the system continues to monitor
the connection in order to be able to clear it down when the call have ended. When a
charge for the call is made by metering, the supervisory circuit send pluses over the
wire to operate meter in the line circuit.
8. Information sending: If the called customer line is located on another exchange the
additional function of information sending is required. The originating exchange must
signal the required address to the terminating exchange .
Classification of switching system
Classification of switching system
• Manual Switching: Operator oriented
• All lines terminate in a jack, patch cord used to connect parties.
• Automatic Switching:
• Electromechanical
• Step-by-step switch (Strowger switch)
• Cross-bar switched (common control)
• Computer-controlled switching : called Stored Program Control (SPC)
switching
Manual Switching
Cross Bar Switch
• The strowger switching system has been the basis of telephone
switching for almost 70 years since its introduction in 1889.
• The major disadvantage of strowger system is its dependence on
moving parts and contacts that are subject to wear and tear.
• Mechanical systems require regular maintenance and adjustments
and for this purpose they must be located in places that are easily and
speedily accessible by skilled technicians.
• As the telephone network spread to remote areas, it became
necessary to devise switching systems that would require less
maintenance and little readjustment after installation.
• Efforts in this direction led to the invention of crossbar switching
systems.
Introduction
• The first Crossbar Switching system, AT&T, 1938.
• Common Control subsystems were first introduced in crossbar
exchanges.
• Basic Idea
• To provide a matrix of (n x m) sets of contacts with only (n + m)
activators or less to select one of the (n x m) sets of contacts.
• This form of switching is also known as the coordinate switching as
the switching contacts are arranged in a xy-plane.
• There is an array of horizontal and vertical wires shown by solid lines.
Principle of Cross Bar Switching
Cross point Switching matrix
• Horizontal & Vertical wires
• Contact points
• Horizontal & Vertical bars
• Electromagnets
• A set of vertical and horizontal contact points are connected to these
wires.
• The contact points form pairs, each pair consisting of a bank of three
or four horizontal and a corresponding bank of vertical contact points.
• A contact point pair acts as a cross point switch and remains
separated or open when not in use.
Cross Bar Switch Limitations

• Major limitation
• As the size of a cross-bar switch grows, the number of cross-points becomes
very large.
• This gets expensive and puts a limit on the size of pure cross-bar switches.
• 1 million for 1000 inputs and 1000 outputs
• Impractical – size
• Inefficient – mostly idle (in practice, fewer than 25 percent are in use at a given
time)
Procedures of Switching

• Ascertain when subscriber goes off-hook