Adama Science and Technology University

Department of Electronics and Communication

Engineering
Telecommunication Networks and Switching
(ECE5306)
Chapter One
Basics of Telecom Networks
Network Load Parameters

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Timing diagrams for landline to mobile and vice versa
 Introduction
The basic purpose of a telecommunications
network is to transmit user information in any form
to another user of the network.
User information may take many forms, such as
voice, data, and video which use different access
network technologies.

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 Communication Networks
Communication networks enable users to transfer
information in the form of: voice, video, Data, and
computer files.
Users request the communication service they need by
means of networked devices using:
 a telephone handset or cellular phone ,
set-top T V box , o r
 through applications running on a host computer such
as a PC or workstation .

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 Communication Networks Types are:

1. Telecommunication Networks
2. Computer Networks
3. Cable Television Networks and
4. Wireless Networks

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 Telecommunication Networks
A telephone network comprises:
• Switching points,
• Communications lines, and
• Telephone sets.
The telephone network is actually one great
communication system which encompasses many different
networks.
 If we consider the customers of networks and the
availability of services, there are two broad categories:
a. Public Networks and
b. Private or Dedicated Networks.

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 a. Public Networks
Public networks are owned and managed by
telecommunications network operators.
These network operators have a license to provide
telecommunications services.
1. Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN): is the main
public network in use.
 PSTN is the main system which forms the world’s telephone network.
 The PSTN is the system which allows any phone in the world to connect to
any other phone in the world.
2. Public Land Mobile Telephone Networks (PLMN):
 They are regional or national access networks and connected
to the PSTN for long-distance and international connections.
 The Cellular networks connect mobile phones to the PSTN.

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 Public Networks continued …

3. Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)

4. Internet
5. Radio and Television Networks: are usually
unidirectional radio distribution networks for mass
communications.

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 Private or Dedicated Networks
Private networks are built and designed to serve the needs of
particular organizations.
They usually own and maintain the networks themselves.
1. Voice Communication Networks: Examples of private dedicated voice
networks are those used by the police and other emergency
services.
2. PBX Networks
 Are private networks used by companies and organizations
 If necessary, they can be connected to the fixed line network to
connect outside the organization
3. Data Communication Networks: Data communication networks are
dedicated networks especially designed for the transmission of data
between the offices of an organization.

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 Private Network Continued…
3. Virtual Private Networks (VPN): provides a service similar to an
ordinary private network, but the systems in the network are
the property of the network operator.
 In effect, a VPN provides a dedicated network for the customer
with the help of public network equipment.
 A virtual private network that is established over, in general, the
Internet
 It is virtual because it exists as a virtual entity within a public
network
 From the user’s perspective, it appears as a network consisting of
dedicated network links
 These links appear as if they are reserved for the VPN clientele
 Because of encryption, the network appears to be private

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 Networking Principles:
The four principles that underlie the growth of
communication network services are:
• Digitization,
• Economies of scale,
• Network externalities, and
• Economies of scope or Service integration.
• Economies of scope , or service integration , refers to
the fact that a network that currently provides one set of
services may be expanded to provide new services at an
additional cost that is much less than if a separate
network were built to provide those new services.

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 Service Integration Continued …
• Economies of service integration are possible
because communications engineers now design
services in a modular and standardized way so
that new services can be introduced using
existing hardware and software modules .
 The widespread deployment of ATM, and broadband access
over cable TV and ADSL, will facilitate service integration
to such an extent that one can imagine a single network that
will provide all of the services that today are provided by
separate networks.
 These services include telephone, data, broadcast TV and
radio, and CATV.
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 Traffic Characterization and QOS:
 Traffic Characterization describe the traffic that the
applications generate as well as the acceptable delays
and losses by the network in delivering that trafic.
The information that applications generate can take
many forms: Text, Voice, Audio Data, Graphics,
Pictures, and Videos
Moreover the information can be:
• One-way
• Two-way
• Broadcast or
• Multi-point

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 Continued …
We classify all traffic into three types. That is a
user application can generate:
• Constant bit rate (CBR)
• Variable Bit rate (VBR) or
• A sequence of Messages with different temporal
characters tics

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 Constant Bit Rate
To transmit a voice signal, the telephone network
equipment first converts it into a stream of bits with a
constant rate of 64Kbps.
Video compression standards convert a video signal into
a bit stream with a CBR.
For instance, MPEG1 produces a poor quality video at
1.15Mbps and a good quality at 3 MBps.
For the voice or video application to be an acceptable
quality, the network must transmit the bit stream with a
short delay and corrupt at most a small fraction of bits.
This fraction is called the bit error rate (BER)

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 Variable Bit Rate
Some signal compression techniques convert a
signal into a bit stream that has a variable bit rate.
For instance, MPEG2 is a family of standards for
such variable bit rate compression of video signals.
Messages
Many user applications on a network are
implemented by processes that exchange
messages.

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 Network (Communication) Services:
 Are Connection-Oriented Service and
Connectionless Service
Connection-Oriented Service
 Setup data transfer ahead of time (through
handshaking)
 It provides:
 Reliable, in-order byte delivery
 Flow control
 Congestion control.
 Internet’s connection-oriented service is TCP
(Transmission Control Protocol).
 Applications using TCP: Email (SMTP), web
16 browsing (HTTP), and file transfer (FTP)
 Connection-oriented versus Connectionless

Connectionless Services
 It provides:
unreliable data transfer
no flow control
no congestion control
 Internet’s connectionless service is UDP (User
Datagram Protocol.
 Applications using UDP: streaming media, video
conferencing, and IP telephony.

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 Network Elements
A Communication Network is a collection of network
elements interconnected and managed to support the
transfer of information from a user at one network
location or node to a user at another node.
There are two principal network elements:
 Transmission links and
 Switches

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 Continued …
A transmission link transfers a stream of bits from one end
to the other at a certain rate with a given bit error rate and a
fixed propagation time.
Transmission systems use four basic media for information
transfer from one point to another:
1. Copper cables, such as those used in LANs and telephone
subscriber lines
2. Optical fiber cables, such as high-data-rate transmission
in telecommunications networks;
3. Radio waves, such as cellular telephones and satellite
transmission;
4. Free-space optics, such as infrared remote controllers.

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 Basic Network Mechanism
A network bearer services comprise the end-
to-end transport of bit streams, in specific
formats over a set of routes.
These services are differentiated by quality:
• Speed, delay, errors.
They are produced using five basic
mechanisms:
1. Multiplexing
• Multiplexing combines data streams of many users
into one large bandwidth stream.
20 • Users thereby can share the large bandwidth.
 Continued …
2. Switching
• Switching allows us to bring together the data
streams of dispersed users.
• In telephone networks, a switch is located in the
central office.
• A link between two switches is called a trunk.
• A link between a subscriber telephone and a switch
is called an access line or subscriber loop.

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 Fig 2.1. A Basic Telecommunications Network
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 Continued …
3. Error Control: All transmission links occasionally
corrupt the messages they transmit. It is therefore
important for the network to control such errors.
4. Flow control: is a mechanism that enables the
receiver to pace the transmission of the source.

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 Continued …

5. Congestion Control: is a generic name for a set of

mechanisms designed to limit the rate or number of packets
introduced into the network by a source or a switch. If the
congestion control mechanism does not function properly, an
excessive number of may accumulate in the switch buffers
causing unacceptable delay or loss.
6. Resource Allocation:
Because network resources (link bandwidth and switch
buffers) are shared by many applications at the same time,
resource allocation mechanisms must be designed to ensure
that each application receives the necessary resources to
maintain its quality of service.

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 Layered Architecture
An architecture is a specific way of organizing many
functions performed by a computer network when it
provides services such as: a file transfer, e-mail,
directory services, and terminal emulation.
When protocols are arranged into layers, the protocol
entities of adjacent layers exchange messages.
Once it gets a message, a protocol entity performs some
operations before it transmits the message to the next
protocol entity.

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 Telephone Numbering
An international telephone connection from any
telephone to any other telephone is made possible by
unique identification of each subscriber socket in the
world.
In mobile telephone networks, each telephone set (or
subscriber card) has a unique identification number.
The numbering is hierarchical, and it has an
internationally standardized country code at the highest
level.
This makes national numbering schemes independent
from each other.
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 International prefix
An international prefix or international access number is used
for international calls.
It tells the network that the connection is to be routed via an
international telephone exchange to another country.
The country code contains one to four numbers that define
the country of subscriber. Country codes are not needed for
national calls because their purpose is to make the subscriber
identification unique in the world.
A telephone number that includes the country code is called
an international number and it has a maximum length of 12
digits.
The country codes have been defined by the ITU.

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 00 or + 251 046 2207051

Fig 2.2. The Structure of The Telephone Number Hierarchy

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 Call set-up and release
Figure 2.3 shows a small part of a telecommunication
network. It consists of exchanges, trunks, and subscriber
lines.
 Trunks are circuits between exchanges, and the
group of trunks between a pair of exchanges is
known as a trunk group (TG).
 Subscriber lines (SLs) are circuits between a
subscriber S and the local exchange (A, B, C).
 Exchanges D and E do not have subscriber lines
and are known as intermediate, tandem, toll, or transit
exchanges.
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 Call set-up and release

30 Fig 2.3:Exchanges, trunks, and subscriber lines.

 Call set-up and release

Fig 2.4: Connections involving subscriber Sp

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 Call set-up and release
Calls:
 A call requires a communication circuit (connection) between
two subscribers.
 Figure 2.4 shows a number of connections in the network of Fig.
2.3 that involve subscriber Sp.
In Fig. 2.4(a), Sp is on a call with Sq who is attached to the same
exchange. Calls of this type are known as interexchange calls.
The circuit in case (b) consists of a temporary path
across exchange A, trunk T1, a temporary path across
exchange B, and SLr .
The connections of Fig. 2.4 are set up (switched “on”) at the start
of a call and released (switched “off”) when the call ends.

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 Call set-up and release
Setup and Release:
 The setup and release of connections in telecommunication networks
are triggered by signals. Starting and ending a call involve
signalling between the subscribers and their local exchanges and,
for interexchange calls, signalling between the exchanges along the
connection.
 Figure 2.5 shows the signalling for the setup of the connection of Fig
2.4(b).
Subscriber Sp sends a request-for-service signal to exchange A
(by lifting the handset of a telephone) and then signals the digits of
the telephone number of Sr (with the dial or keyset of the telephone).
From the received number, exchange A determines that Sr is served
by exchange B, and that the call is to be routed out on a trunk in
group TG1 (Fig. 2.3).

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 Call set-up and release

34 Fig 2.5: Setup of a connection

 Call set-up and release
It then Searches for an idle trunk in this group and finds trunk
T1. Exchange A now seizes the trunk and sends a seizure signal,
followed by signals that represent digits of the called number, to
exchange B. It then sets up a path between SLp and T1 .
 When exchange B receives the seizure signal and the called
number, it checks whether Sr is idle.
If this is the case,it sends a ringing signal on SLr, and a ringing
tone signal on T1, to inform Sp.
When Sr lifts the handset of the telephone , an answer signal is
sent to exchange B, which then stops the ringing signal and the
ringing tone, sets up a path between T1 and SLr, and signals to
exchange A that the call has been answered.

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 Timing Diagram: Landline to Mobile connection set up

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 Timing Diagram: Mobile to Landline connection set up

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 Network Load Parameters
Busy hour: Continuous 1-hour period lying wholly in the time
interval concerned, for which the traffic volume or the number
of call attempts is greatest.
OR
In a day ,the 60-minute interval in which the traffic is the
highest is called the busy hour.
Peak busy hour: The busy hour each day; it is usually varies
from day to day, or over a number of days.
Time consistent Busy Hour: The 1-hour period starting at the
same time each day for which the average traffic volume or
the number of call attempts is greatest over the days under
consideration.

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 Network Load Parameters
Call Completion rate (CCR): is defined as the ratio of the number
of successful calls to the number of call attempts.
Busy hour call attempts (BHCA): The number of call attempt in
the busy hour is called Busy hour call attempts (BHCA), which is
an important parameter in deciding the processing capacity of a
common control or a stored program control system of an
exchange.
Traffic intensity: The traffic on the network may be measured in
terms of the occupancy of the servers in the network. Such a
measure is called the Traffic intensity.
 A0 =Period for which a server is occupied/total period of
observation
A0 is dimensionless and is called erlang (E).

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 Network Load Parameters
Traffic intensity is also measured in another way. This
measure is known as centum call second (CCS) which
represents a call-time product.
One CCS may mean one call for 100 seconds duration or 100
calls for one second duration each or any other combination.
Sometimes, call seconds (CS) and call minutes (CM) are also
used as a measure of traffic intensity.
1E=36 CCS = 3600 CS =60 CM
Grade of Service: The amount of traffic rejected by the
network is an index of the quality of the service offered by
the network. This is termed grade of service (GOS)

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 Network Load Parameters
 It is defined as the ratio of lost traffic to offered
traffic.
Offered traffic is the product of the average number of
calls generated by the users and the average holding
time per call.
The actual traffic carried by the network is called the
Carried traffic and is the average occupancy of the
servers in the network as given by
GOS=A-A0/A
 Where A=offered traffic
A0=carried traffic
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A-A0 =lost traffic
 Telecommunication Services
 In general, telecommunication services can classified into three
broad categories.
i. Basic Services
 Are services that everyone needs
 Ask cost

ii. Supplementary Services

 Additional services for ease of communication
 Provided without cost

iii. Value-added Services

 Additional services for effective communication
 Ask some cost
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 Telecommunication System Components
 All telecommunication networks are made up of five basic
elements that are present in each network environment
regardless of type or use.
 These basic components include:
 Terminals,
 Telecommunications Processors,
 Telecommunications Channels,
 Computers and
 Telecommunications Control Software.

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Components of Telecommunication Networks Cont’d….

 Terminals:
 Input / Output Devices

 Any input or output device that is used to transmit or receive data can be
classified as a terminal element.
 are the starting and stopping points in any telecommunication network
environment.
 Telecommunication processors:
 support data transmission and reception between terminals and computers
by providing a variety of control and support functions (i.e. convert data
from digital to analog and back).

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 Components of Telecommunication Networks Cont’d….

 Processors: modems, multiplexers, front-end processors

Front- End Processor: minicomputer manages
communication for host computer
Concentrator: computer collects messages for batch
transmission to host computer
Controller: computer controls interface between CPU and
peripheral devices
Multiplexer: allows channel to carry multiple sources
simultaneously

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 Components of Telecommunication Networks Cont’d….

 Telecommunication (Communication) channels:

  are the way by which data is transmitted and received.
 are created through a variety of media of which the most popular
include copper wires and coaxial cables. 
 Fiber-optic cables are increasingly used to bring faster and more robust
connections to businesses and homes.

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 Components of Telecommunication Networks Cont’d….

 Computers:
 In a telecommunication environment computers are connected
through media to perform their communication assignments.
 Early networks were built without computers, but late in the 20 th
century their switching centers were computerized or the networks
replaced with computer networks.

 Telecommunications control software:

 is present on all networked computers and is responsible for
controlling network activities and functionality.

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 Assignment II(All assignments July 19 mark down if not
submitted in time)

1. An exchange serves 2000 subscribers. If the average BHCA is

10,000 and the CCR is 60%, calculate the busy hour calling rate.
2. In a group of 10 servers, each is occupied for 30 minutes in an
observation interval of two hours. Calculate the traffic carried by
the group.
3. A group of 20 servers carry a traffic of 10 erlangs. If the
average duration of a call is three minutes, calculate the number
of calls put through by a single server and the group as a whole
in a one-hour period.
4. A Subscriber makes three phone calls of three minutes, four
minutes and two minutes duration in a one-hour period.
Calculate the subscriber traffic in erlangs, CCS and CM.

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 Thank You!

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