Principles of Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
Principles of Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
JAIN
Principles of Synchronous
Principles of
OFC-based SDH systems.”
—S.K. Biswas, Chief Communication Engineer, Western Railway, Mumbai, India
If you want to “know” what synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) is, any book
or tutorial on the Internet will give you a quick overview. However, if you want
Synchronous
to “understand” its importance, you need more. You need a deep knowledge
of the fundamentals of plesiochronous digital hierarchy (PDH), and any book
on SDH that does not include these fundamentals will leave you high and
dry. A comprehensive learning tool, Principles of Synchronous Digital
Hierarchy provides a complete guide for professionals in the field of
Digital
telecommunication transport technologies—the backbone communication.
Hierarchy
SDH principles to give you the background needed and presents them in a
logical chronology. He stresses the fundamentals, even at the cost of some
repetition, to develop a strong foundation and deep understanding of the
material. He builds on this with coverage of line coding, clock, PCM, TDM,
signal impairments, synchronization, and PDH principles and O&M, then
introduces analog multiplexing, media for SDH, carrying data over SDH,
and new generation SDH and OTN to impart a clear understanding of
digital multiplexing.
K15097
ISBN: 978-1-4665-1726-4
90000
9 781466 517264 R A J E S H K U M A R J A I N
R A J E S H K U M A R J A I N
This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable efforts
have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume
responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers
have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to
copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has
not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint.
Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmit-
ted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without written permission from the publishers.
For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, please access www.copyright.
com (http://www.copyright.com/) or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood
Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that provides licenses and
registration for a variety of users. For organizations that have been granted a photocopy license by the CCC,
a separate system of payment has been arranged.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used
only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
1. Introduction .....................................................................................................1
1.1 You and Me ............................................................................................1
1.2 “Mr. Watson, Come Here. I Want to See You.” .................................1
1.3 Technology of the Telephone ...............................................................2
1.3.1 Transmitter ...............................................................................3
1.3.2 Receiver .....................................................................................4
1.3.3 Metallic Wires ..........................................................................4
1.4 Telephone Exchanges............................................................................6
1.4.1 Manual Exchange ....................................................................6
1.4.2 Automatic Exchanges ..............................................................7
1.5 Long-Distance Communication ..........................................................8
1.6 Need for Multiplexing ..........................................................................9
1.7 Techniques of Multiplexing .................................................................9
1.8 Multiplexing Structure of FDM Schemes ........................................ 11
1.9 Capacities of Various Analog (FDM) Multiplexing Systems ........ 13
1.9.1 Copper Wire Pairs.................................................................. 13
1.9.2 Coaxial Cables ........................................................................ 13
1.9.3 Microwave Systems ............................................................... 13
1.10 Digital Multiplexing ........................................................................... 14
1.10.1 Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy ....................................... 14
1.10.2 Synchronous Digital Hierarchy ........................................... 15
1.10.3 Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing ........................ 15
1.10.4 Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing ......................... 16
1.10.5 Optical Transport Network .................................................. 16
Review Questions .......................................................................................... 16
Critical Thinking Questions......................................................................... 17
Bibliography.................................................................................................... 17
v
vi Contents
5. Clock.............................................................................................................. 101
5.1 What Is a Clock? ................................................................................ 101
5.2 Significance of the Clock .................................................................. 102
viii Contents
15. Transmission Media for PDH/SDH and OFC Technology ................ 453
15.1 Types of Media for PDH/SDH Transmission ............................... 453
15.1.1 Copper Wire Pair ................................................................. 453
15.1.2 Coaxial Cables ...................................................................... 455
15.1.3 Microwave Radios ............................................................... 456
15.1.4 Free Space Optics (Air Fiber) .............................................. 457
15.1.5 Optical Fiber Cable .............................................................. 458
15.2 Optical Fiber Communication Technology ................................... 459
15.2.1 Principles of OFC ................................................................. 459
15.2.2 Optical Frequency/Wavelength Used .............................. 461
15.2.3 Types of Optical Fibers........................................................463
15.2.3.1 Plastic Fiber ...........................................................463
15.2.3.2 Glass Fibers ...........................................................464
15.2.3.3 Multimode Fiber ...................................................464
15.2.3.4 Single Mode Fiber................................................. 465
15.2.3.5 Dispersion-Shifted Fibers.................................... 465
15.2.3.6 Step Index Fiber .................................................... 466
Contents xvii
Dear friends,
I am an engineer by qualification and a signaling and telecommunication
professional by occupation. I work in the Signaling and Telecommunication
Department of the Indian Railways. Our job is to install and maintain vari-
ous signaling and telecommunication equipment required for railway oper-
ations. We have a phenomenal variety of signaling equipment with us, from
the oldest semaphore signaling systems to the latest electronic interlocking
systems and a variety of traffic control, management, protection, and data
logging systems. On the telecommunication front, we are engaged in the
installation, operation, and maintenance of many types of equipment in
most of the segments of popular telecommunication technologies. We have
telephone exchanges, omnibus control circuits, microwave radio links, opti-
cal fiber cables carrying long-distance synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH)
links, data communication networks running critical applications, ISM band
wireless links including short-distance DSSS and long-distance OFDM links,
GSM/R (GSM/R is a variation of GSM technology especially suited to rail-
way applications) for mobile communication between the running train and
the ground administration, and so forth.
There is no doubt that it is beyond the capabilities of a normal human
being to keep track of the fine details of all the signaling and telecommunica-
tion technologies, current and upcoming, in the current scenario of superfast
technological developments.
A few years back in my career, destiny threw me to a posting in Railtel
Corporation of India Ltd. (RCIL), a public-sector company under the Ministry
of Railways of the Government of India. Although RCIL was engaged in many
types of telecommunication businesses, its main revenue stream was the tele-
communication bandwidth across the country. Their network was built on rail-
ways’ optical fiber cable by deploying SDH/WDM systems. It was a sudden
jolt to my ego of technical competence when I could not tackle the nuts and
bolts of the SDH technology. Until then, I had been engaged in the installation,
operations, and maintenance of many types of signaling and telecommunica-
tion systems, and the telecommunication systems included mainly electronic
exchanges, microwave radio links, and data communication networks, aside
from other minor variations. I had some exposure to the OFC systems and car-
rier technologies, but what was expected of me was a thorough knowledge of
the SDH technology and associated systems and the ability to manage the sys-
tems and services effectively. Despite striving hard to understand the subject,
I found myself nowhere near the competency level that I would generally like
to have had. I continued to discharge my duties and did it quite well, somehow
managing with a makeshift knowledge of the SDH systems, which I gathered
xix
xx Preface
Rajesh Kumar Jain is chief signal engineer in the Signaling and Tele
communication Department of Indian Railways. He did his engineering in
electronics and telecommunication from Government Engineering College
Jabalpur (India) in 1979. The institute is a pioneer in engineering education
in the field of electronics and telecommunication in India, being the first col
lege to offer this course since 1948. He worked in DRDO (Defense Research
and Development Organization) as a scientist, where he was involved in
the development of RADAR systems. He joined Indian Railways Services
of Signal Engineers (IRSSE) in 1984. Since then, he has worked in various
capacities as a maintenance and project engineer, leading a team of a few
hundred technical staff to ensure efficient and reliable operations and main
tenance of the signaling and telecommunication systems of Indian Railways.
Throughout his career he was posted on the most challenging positions. His
approach toward work has always been a problemsolving approach that led
to innovation and implementation of many improvements in the design and
maintenance practices of signal and telecommunication systems of Indian
Railways. Jain handled the toughest and heaviest traffic section of Indian
Railways, i.e., the Mumbai Suburban section for a period of eight years at
a stretch. He innovated, developed and implemented a number of modifi
cations of the signaling systems that ensured safe and efficient running of
more than 1500 trains in the Mumbai–Kalyan section every day. He has to
his credit a number of honors bestowed upon him by Indian Railways. Jain
won the most coveted Minister’s award in the year 2001 for his contribu
tions to the organization. He has presented many papers in various technical
forums on the subjects relating to signaling, telecommunication and light
ning protection systems, and all of them were highly applauded.
The author can be contacted through email at rajeshjain2001@indiatimes
.com.
xxiii
This page intentionally left blank
1
Introduction
1
2 Principles of Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
FIGURE 1.1
Children’s communication through cotton thread.
Receivers
Transmitters
FIGURE 1.2
The basic telephone technology. (If you are wondering why there is only one pair of wires, and
why only transmitters are connected to each other and not the receivers, here is the answer.
Although there is only one pair of wires connecting the two telephones, the transmitted voice
is separated from the received voice by means of a circuit called “Hybrid.” When the voice is
received by the telephone, Hybrid directs it to the receiver (or earpiece), and when the person
speaks, the voice is guided to the transmitter by the Hybrid circuit.)
Introduction 3
1.3.1 Transmitter
The principle of operation of the transmitter is illustrated in Figure 1.3.
Fine carbon granules are filled between two carbon electrodes. One of the
carbon electrodes is fixed, while the other is movable. An aluminum dia-
phragm is attached with the help of a soft rubber to the movable electrode.
The movable electrode is suspended on thin mica flanges with the transmit-
ter body. DC voltage is applied between the electrodes, which results in the
flow of a DC current.
When a person speaks in front of the diaphragm, the sound waves gener-
ated by the pressure of the voice move the diaphragm to and fro. The dis-
placement of the diaphragm is proportionate to the pressure of the sound
waves. The diaphragm in turn moves the movable electrode. The movement
of the electrode causes the pressure on the carbon granules to increase or
decrease in accordance with the sound pressure. This causes the resistance
between the two electrodes to vary, which in turn causes the current flow-
ing through the circuit to vary in accordance with the incident sound pres-
sure. Thus, the speech of the person is converted into electrical current
variations. When this current is applied to a receiver (depicted in the figure
as resistance R), which can convert the electrical variations back into voice,
the conversation is achieved. Since these electrical variations could be car-
ried on metallic wires to long distances (a few miles), the telephone became
feasible.
The present-day transmitter is very different from that described above in
the construction details and the materials used, but the basic principles of
operation remain the same.
Movable carbon
electrode
Fixed carbon
Aluminum diaphragm electrode
Carbon granules
V R (receiver)
(Battery)
FIGURE 1.3
The principles of functioning of a transmitter (or microphone).
4 Principles of Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
Diaphragm
Permanent
magnet Coils on magnetic poles
FIGURE 1.4
The principle of operation of a telephone receiver.
1.3.2 Receiver
The principle of operation of the receiver is just the opposite of the transmit-
ter. Figure 1.4 illustrates this.
A permanent magnet is fixed with two poles that carry copper wire coils
with a high number of turns. A diaphragm is attached to the assembly by
means of soft rubber. The current received from the transmitter is fed to the
coil.
The magnet normally exerts a pull on the diaphragm. When current
received from the transmitter is fed to the coils, this current produces elec-
tromagnetic flux. This flux also causes a pull on the diaphragm. Since the
flux created by electromagnetic coils varies in accordance with the variations
in the incoming current, the pull on the diaphragm also varies in accordance
with the current received from the transmitter. This variation in the pull on
the diaphragm produces sound waves, which reproduce the speech of the
person speaking into the transmitter.
Again, the modern receiver has undergone substantial changes in the con-
struction details and the material used; but the basic principles of operation
remain the same.
Copper wires
Transmitter Receiver
(Battery)
“A” “B”
FIGURE 1.5
Person “A” is transmitting (speaking) while person “B” is receiving (listening).
Transmitter Tx Rx
Receiver Rx Tx
“A” “B”
FIGURE 1.6
Person “A” and “B” both are transmitting (speaking) and receiving (listening).
Copper wire is the most expensive of the three components. Long dis-
tances were involved, and it was expensive to bury the wires: they had to
be bunched in a strong cable, trenches dug, and roads cut. Thus, it was felt
necessary to reduce this cost as much as possible. One way to achieve this
was to use only a single pair of copper wires instead of two. By means of a
circuit called “Hybrid,” a single pair of copper wires carries the voice signals
from both directions. The Hybrid directs the received signal to the receiver
and sends the transmitted signals on the single pair. Figure 1.7 illustrates
Single pair
copper wire
Tx Tx
Hybrid Hybrid
Rx Battery Rx
“A” “B”
FIGURE 1.7
Use of a single pair for telephonic communication between two persons, with the help of the
“Hybrid” circuit.
6 Principles of Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
the concept. (The description of the device called Hybrid is quite interesting
but is out of the scope of this text. The readers who are interested in reading
further about it may refer to any basic text on telephony.)
A B
Subscribers
Manual
F exchange C
Wire pairs
E D
FIGURE 1.8
General layout of a manual exchange.
Subsequently however, the ACSR wire with its limited capacity gave way
to copper coaxial cables and microwave radios, etc. (This will be amplified
in subsequent sections.)
Multiplexer
4 kHz signal
generation Modulator
Ch-1 (0.3 to 3.4 kHz)
8 kHz signal
generation 4 to 20 kHz signal
Modulator
Combiner
Ch-2 (0.3 to 3.4 kHz)
12 kHz signal
generation Modulator
Ch-3 (0.3 to 3.4 kHz)
16 kHz signal
generation Modulator
Ch-4 (0.3 to 3.4 kHz)
FIGURE 1.9
Multiplexing of four channels with the support of carrier frequencies.
De-multiplexer
FIGURE 1.10
De-multiplexing of channels at the receiver.
Frequency
in kHz
(a) Basic group of 12 channels
Freq in
Super 1 2 3 4 5
group no.
Freq in
kHz 812 1052 1060 1300 1308 1548 1556 1796 1804 2044
(With a gap called a guard band of 8 kHz in between each super group)
FIGURE 1.11
Multiplexing structure of FDM schemes.
Introduction 13
With the advent of digital technology, all these problems of analog systems
were thrown into sharp focus. It became apparent that the analog systems
had no future, and by now they have been completely replaced by digital
systems.
Although there are several other advantages of the digital systems, these
two advantages far outweigh all others. They have led to the possibilities
of adding large numbers of repeaters through noiseless regeneration, and
accommodating a very large number of channels in a single transmission
link through the method of time division multiplexing. These subjects are
dealt with in detail in subsequent chapters, and only a brief description of
the prevailing technologies follows here.
The digital multiplexing technologies are plesiochronous digital hierarchy
(PDH), synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH), coarse wavelength division
multiplexing (CWDM), dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM),
and optical transport network (OTN).
No. of
speech
Sr. No. SDH Module No. of E1s channels
1 STM-1 63 1890
2 STM-4 252 7560
3 STM-16 1008 30,240
4 STM-64 4024 120,960
FIGURE 1.12
Channel capacities of various levels of SDH.
Review Questions
9. Why is the frequency band of 0.3 to 3.4 kHz chosen for voice
channels?
10. What are the main components of analog multiplexing and de-
multiplexing systems?
11. How is grouping of channels done in FDM and why? What is the
need of a guard band?
12. Up to how many channels could be multiplexed in an FDM system?
13. Make a table comparing the number of channels and repeater spac-
ing in various analog systems.
14. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of copper wire, coaxial
cable, and microwave systems.
15. What are the developments in digital multiplexing technologies and
how do they score over analog multiplexing technologies?
Bibliography
1. L.E. Frenzel, Principles of Electronic Communication Systems, Tata McGraw-Hill,
India, 2008.
2. S. Ramo, J.R. Whinnery, and T. Van Duzer, Fields and Waves in Communication
Electronics, John Wiley and Sons, 1994.
3. J.D. Ryder, Network Lines and Fields, Prentice-Hall, 1975.
4. J.C. Bellamy, Digital Telephony, John Wiley and Sons, Singapore, 2003.
18 Principles of Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
1 1. Introduction