Dire Dawa University

Dire Dawa Institute Of Technology

School Of Electrical & Computer Engineering

Chapter One
Introduction to Telecommunication

Communication Stream
Outline
 What is Telecommunication?
 Significance of Telecom
 Evolution of Telecommunications
 Standardization
 Standards Organizations
 Development of the Telecoms Business

2
What is Telecommunication?

 A technology concerned with communicating from a distance.

 The IEEE dictionary defines telecommunications as “the transmission of
signals over long distance, such as by telegraph, radio or television.”
 Is one of the fastest growing business sector of modern information
technology.
 An overall telecom network consists of local networks interconnected by a
long distance network.
 Telecom networks make up the most complicated equipment in the world.
 No other systems in the world can exceeds the complexity of telecom
network.

3
In telecoms there are:-
End-users: provide the inputs to the
network and are recipients of the
network outputs.
Nodes: a point or junction in a
transmission system where lines and
trunks meet.
Connectivity: connects an end-user to
a node, and from there possibly through
other nodes to some final end-user
destination with which the initiating
end-user wants to communicate.

4
 Telecommunication can be categorized in various ways and one possible view is:

5
 Significance of Telecom
 The operation of modern community is highly dependent on telecommunications.
 Imagine our day to day life with out telecom services!
▪ Telecommunication services have an essential impact on the development of a
community.
 Economic development of developing countries depends on the availability of efficient
telecom services in addition to many other things.
 Services that depend on telecommunications:
▪ Banking
▪ Aviation, booking of tickets
▪ Sales, wholesale and order handling
▪ Credit card payments
▪ Booking of hotel rooms by travel agencies
▪ Material purchasing by industry
▪ Government operations, such as taxation
6
Evolution of Telecommunications

 The methods used have been as varied as the users.

Examples:
▪ Distant drums
▪ Smoke signals
▪ Runners
▪ Carrier pigeons
▪ Pony express
▪ Telegraph
When telephone was first invented, all calls were point-to-point.

7
Standardization
Communication networks are designed to serve a wide variety of users who
are using equipment from many different vendors.
To design and build networks effectively, standards are necessary to achieve:
▪ Interoperability
▪ Compatibility and
▪ Required performance in a cost-effective manner
The main technological aim of standardization is to make systems from
different networks understand each other.

8
What are advantages of standardization

 The standards assure the interoperability of products and services among various
telecommunication services to the users ,among various manufacturers of the
telecom equipment and various service providers.
 The standards assure a specific desired quality of the products and services
 Cost reduction due to the mass manufacturing is possible
 The standards helps the suppliers work to a predefined specifications
 The standards enable new business opportunities by offering new innovative
solutions.

9
 Standards Organizations

 Many organizations are involved in standardization work. We look at them

from two points of view:
The players in the telecommunications business involved in standardization and
The authorities that approve official standards.
Interested parties (groups that are interested in standardization):
A. Network operators
B. Equipment manufacturers
C. Service users
D. Academic experts

10
Cont.…
A. Network Operators
To improve the compatibility of telecommunications systems
To be able to provide wide-area or even international services
To be able to purchase equipment from multiple vendors
B. Equipment manufacturers
To get information about future standards for their development activities as early as possible
To support standards that are based on their own technologies
C. Service users
To support the development of standardized international services
To have access to alternative system vendors (multivendor networks)
To improve the compatibility of their future network systems
D. Academic experts
To become inventors of new technological approaches 11
 Key standardization bodies
Global Organizations
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
 Is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for telecommunications. It has
nearly 200 member countries.
 ITU has done the following activities
Global use of the radio spectrum
Interconnection of international phone calls
Assigning satellite orbits
Works to improve telecommunication
Establishes the world wide standards
Cyber security
 Generally, ITU is committed to connecting the worldwide 12
Cont.…

 ITU standardization work is divided between two major standardization bodies:

ITU-T
ITU-R
 ITU-T works for the standards of public telecommunications networks (e.g. ISDN)
 ITU-R works with radio aspects such as the usage of radio frequencies worldwide and
specifications for radio systems.

13
National Standardization Authorities

 Approve official national standards.

 Many international standards include alternatives and options from which a
national authority selects those suitable for their own national standards.
 Sometimes some aspects are left open and they require a national standard.
For example:-
National authorities determine the details of their national telephone numbering
plan, for which international standards give only guidelines.

14
Cont.…
 International standards define usage of frequency bands (e.g. which frequency
ranges are used for satellite and which for cellular networks). Whereas the
national authority defines detailed usage of frequencies inside the country;
▪ For example:-They allocate frequency channels for cellular network operators.
 Some examples of national authorities are:
▪ British Standards Institute (BSI: United Kingdom)
▪ American National Standards Institute (ANSI: United States) and
▪ Finnish Standards Institute (SFS: Finland)
▪ Deutsche Industrie-Normen ( DIN: Germany)
 They take care of all areas of standardization, and they set up specialized
organizations or working groups to work with the standardization of each
specific technical area.
15
European Organizations

 They are responsible for developing European-wide standards to open national

borders in order to improve European telecoms services.
 The most important European standards organizations are:
European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI): is an independent
body for making standards for the European Community.
European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization /European
Committee for Standardization(CEN/CENELEC): is a joint organization for the
standardization of information technology.
European Conference of Posts and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT)

16
American Organizations
 The U.S. national standards authority, American National Standards Institute, has
accredited several organizations to work for standards for telecommunications.
 Some of these organizations are:
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): is one of the largest
professional societies in the world and it has produced many important standards for
telecommunications.
Electronic Industries Association (EIA): is an American organization
of electronic equipment manufacturers.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC): is a government organization that
regulates wire and radio communications.
Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA): has been developing global third
generation cellular systems together with ETSI from Europe and the Association of
Radio Industries and Broadcasting (ARIB) from Japan. 17
Other Organizations

 Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): responsible for the evolution of the
Internet architecture and it takes care of the standardization of the TCP/IP
protocol suite used in the Internet.
 Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS): an open organization
of cellular system manufacturers.
 Tele Management Forum (TMF): an organization of system manufacturers
that works to speed the development of network management standards.

18
Development of the Telecoms Business

 In the past, telecommunications has been a protected business area.

 The national PTTs were once the only national telecommunications
operators in most countries.
 PTTs had control over standardization in international standardization
bodies.
 During the latter part of the 1980s the deregulation of the telecoms
business started in Europe and proceeded rapidly in many other areas
of the world.
 Competition was not allowed, and the development of services and
networks was slow in many countries.

19
Cont.…

Competitive telecom services are important for the development of an

economy, and governments supported the development of free markets
heavily.
The deregulation of the telecoms business has reduced tariffs on long-
distance calls and mobile calls to a small fraction of the tariffs paid in the
mid-1980s.
The reduction of fees has further increased the demand for services, which
has prompted reductions in the price of terminal equipment, such as mobile
telephones, and the fees for calls.

20
Thank you