Unit 3 The Physical Layer

BTech EXTC Trim IX Faculty: Prof. Sonia Relan

Telephone System
transmitting the human voice in a more-or-less recognizable form. A cable running between two computers can transfer data at 10^9 bps, maybe more. In contrast, a dial-up line has a maximum data rate of 56 kbps, a difference of a factor of almost 20,000. If the dial-up line is replaced by an ADSL connection, there is still a factor of 10002000 difference. By 1890, the three major parts of the telephone system were in place: the switching offices, the wires between the customers and the switching offices (by now balanced, insulated, twisted pairs) with the long-distance connections between the switching offices. Local Loops: Each telephone has two copper wires coming out of it that go directly to the telephone company's nearest end office (also called a local central office). The distance is typically 1 to 10 km, The two-wire connections between each subscriber's telephone and the end office are known in the trade as the local loop.

Structure of the Telephone System

(a) Fully-interconnected network. (b) Centralized switch. (c) Two-level hierarchy.

 Toll Offices: Each end office has a number of outgoing lines to one or more nearby switching centers, called toll offices. These lines are called toll connecting trunks. If both the caller's and callee's end offices happen to have a toll connecting trunk to the same toll office, the connection may be established within the toll office. A telephone network consisting only of telephones (the small dots), end offices (the large dots), and toll offices (the squares) is shown in Fig. Primary, sectional, and regional offices form a network by which the toll offices are connected. Intertoll trunks: The toll, primary, sectional, and regional exchanges communicate with each other via high-bandwidth intertoll trunks (also called interoffice trunks). The number of different kinds of switching centers and their topology varies from country to country depending on the country's telephone density. Figure shows how a medium-distance connection might be routed.

Structure of the Telephone System

A typical circuit route for a medium-distance call.

The Local Loop: Modems, ADSL, and Wireless

The use of both analog and digital transmissions for a computer to computer call. Conversion is done by the modems and codecs.

Modems

(a) A binary signal (b) Amplitude modulation

(c) Frequency modulation (d) Phase modulation

Narrowband ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communications standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the traditional circuits of the public switched telephone network. There are several kinds of access interfaces to ISDN defined as Basic Rate Interface (BRI), Primary Rate Interface (PRI) and Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN). ISDN is a circuit-switched telephone network system, which also provides access to packet switched networks, designed to allow digital transmission of voice and data over ordinary telephone copper wires, resulting in potentially better voice quality than an analog phone can provide. It offers switched connections (for data), in increments of 64 kilobit/s. A major market application for ISDN in some countries is Internet access, where ISDN typically provides a maximum of 128 kbit/s in both upstream and downstream directions.

1. 2. 3.

ISDN
ISDN B-channels can be bonded to achieve a greater data rate, typically 3 or 4 BRIs (6 to 8 64 kbit/s channels) are bonded. In a broad sense ISDN can be considered a suite of digital services existing on layers 1, 2, and 3 of the OSI model. In a videoconference, ISDN provides simultaneous voice, video, and text transmission between individual desktop videoconferencing systems and group videoconferencing systems. ISDN was designed around the notion of separate channels at 64Kbps. ISDN is essentially combinations of these channels, and also slower 16Kbps channels used only for signaling. The 64Kbps channels are called B channels. The 16Kbps channels are called D channels

ISDN Telephone

BRI
BRI is sometimes referred to as 2B+D The interface specifies the following network interfaces: 1. The U interface is a two-wire interface between the exchange and a network terminating unit, which is usually the demarcation point in non-North American networks. 2. The T interface is a serial interface between a computing device and a terminal adapter, which is the digital equivalent of a modem. 3. The S interface is a four-wire bus that ISDN consumer devices plug into; the S & T reference points are commonly implemented as a single interface labeled 'S/T' on an NT1 4. The R interface defines the point between a non-ISDN device and a terminal adapter (TA) which provides translation to and from such a device.

PRI
The other ISDN service available is the Primary Rate Interface (PRI), which is carried over an E1 (2048 kbit/s) in most parts of the world. An E1 is 30 'B' channels of 64 kbit/s, one 'D' channel of 64 kbit/s and a timing and alarm channel of 64 kbit/s. PRI-ISDN is popular throughout the world, especially for connection of PSTN circuits to PBXs. Even though many network professionals use the term "ISDN" to refer to the lower-bandwidth BRI circuit, in North America by far the majority of ISDN services are in fact PRI circuits serving PBX

Broadband ISDN
The copper between the houses won't last forever. Eventually higher speed transmission media will be available. Narrowband ISDN was basically a stopgap measure. But it's development allowed time for the design of Broadband ISDN to be even more ambitious. Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN) is similar to Narrowband ISDN only in the most basic aspects. The reference configurations are largely the same, but every bit of the underlying design will be replaced. The S/T bus will by necessity have to be a much faster network, as will the network at the U reference point. The house will most likely need to be rewired yet again, and all the physical connectors are likely to change. B-ISDN is very strongly related to ATM. This is because ATM will provide a consistent data encapsulation scheme that can be used throughout the network, starting with your TE1 or TA equipment, and covering every piece of telecommunications equipment in use.. ATM is so important to B-ISDN.

ATM
Asynchronous Transfer mode, originally designed for broadband applications in public networks. Inherently applicable to high speed communications in LANs. ATM is method of multiplexing and relaying (cell switching) 53 byte cells containing either text, compresses images, real time audio or video information. Cell switching is a form of fast packet switching based on the use of short, fixed length packets called cells. ATM has been increasingly used for transferring for real time multimedia data in LAN at speed higher than 100 Mbits/sec Speed ranges from 100 to 699Mbits/sec. and enhanced version ranges from 1 Mbits/sec to 2.4 Gbits/sec ATM s power lies in its ability to provide a high capacity, low latency switching fabric for data, independent of protocol and distance. ATM is switch based, cell relay technology that connects individual nodes on dedicated bandwidth. Hence ATM was proposed as a means of transmitting multimedia applications over Asynchronous networks.