Digital Loop Carrier Tutorial

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This tutorial-level presentation OF DIGITAL loop carrier (DLC) technology is for both
nontechnical readers and the technically versed who lack network applications experience. It
describes DLC technology with a focus on the primary motivations for its development. Other
topics include a comparison to channel bank technology, the organization of DLC technology in
North America, and a comparison of universal digital loop carrier (UDLC) and integrated digital
loop carrier (IDLC) technologies. The concluding topic illustrates a functional equivalence
between DLC and fiber-in-the-loop technologies. Although three generations of DLC technology
have brought an abundance of features and capabilities, this paper sticks to the basics to
remain instructional. Discussion is limited to North American DLC technologies.

Environment and Definitions

The following brief overview of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) illustrates the
area where DLC technology is applied.

The PSTN represents the architecture used by local exchange carriers (LECs) and
interexchange carriers (IECs). Table 1 and Figure 1 convey four key PSTN elements. Network
elements unique to private line services and data networks are excluded for the sake of brevity.

Table 1. Basic PSTN Elements

ELEMENT PHYSICAL FUNCTIONAL
1-Terminal Equipment Telephone, PC, PBX, fax, Transducer function for
etc. sending/receiving end-user
data and signaling

2-Local Loop Copper pair, DLC system, Access line to connect

fiber optic system, wireless terminal equipment to LEC
transmission, etc. and IEC services
3-Local Office Switching, transmission, Dial tone, switching,
and power equipment transport, emergency
power, administrative
functions
4-Interoffice Network Primarily fiber optic Access to:
transmission media plus Other LEC local offices and
satellite transmission. toll services IEC services
Switching assets including
systems for operator
services.

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Figure1. Four Key Elements of the Public Network

You can conveniently envision a local loop as a single copper cable pair (two conductors).
However, actual implementations may include a loop carrier system segment as described in this
paper. Fiber optic transmission systems often support the loop carrier system. Two functional
definitions may be helpful:

1. A line is a circuit that connects a terminal device and a switching system.

2. A trunk is a circuit that connects two switching systems.

Early Motivations for DLC Technology

Loop carrier systems were ordained to solve two problems: to reduce copper cable pair
requirements; and to overcome electrical constraints on long loops. The next two sections describe
those two problems and illustrate DLC's role in providing solutions.

THE NEED TO REDUCE COPPER CABLE PAIR DEPLOYMENTS

A number of pressing issues supplied motivation for technology that would reduce cable pair
deployments. Those issues include the following:

• Imminent cable supply shortages (especially dependence on newly-mined copper)

• Cable route congestion (particularly in urban streets, bridges, and buildings)
• Construction challenges (in areas of difficult terrain)
• Expensive cable including the associated labor- intensive installation work

The first solution to these problems was the multiparty telephone line that shared one cable pair
with up to eight customers. The party line was followed by a number of analog loop carrier
technologies. Digital loop carrier (DLC) systems were introduced in North America in the mid-1970s
with AT&T's Subscriber Line Carrier-40 (SLC-40) and followed in 1979 by SLC-96. SLC-40 serves 40
individual lines and SLC-96 serves 96 lines.

The DLC solution was dubbed "pair gain" (from the days when DLC was deployed to recover
copper pairs in the loop plant environment). Figure 2 illustrates pair gain by showing a 96-line DLC
alternative to providing 96 direct cable pairs from the central office to each telephone. The pair gain
effect equals the direct cable count less the pairs required for the T1 lines (for DS1 signal) between the
central office and remote terminal. Hence, pair gain = 96 - 10 = 86 pairs gained (back). Ten cable pairs
are used with 96-line DLC systems to provide five T1 spans: four active spans plus one span line for

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Digital Loop Carrier Tutorial 3

the optional span protection feature. Each T1 line requires two cable pairs and carries 24 channels
(DS0s). Pair gain = 88 when span protection is not implemented.

Figure 2. Direct Cable Pairs vs. DLC Alternative

THE NEED TO ADDRESS ELECTRICAL LIMITATIONS ON LONG LOOPS

Long loops, such as those terminating at more than 18,000 feet from the central office, pose
electrical challenges. When the subscriber goes off-hook, a cable pair behaves like a single loop
inductance coil with a -48 Vdc potential and an electrical current flow of between 20 - 50 mA dc.
Electrical current values vary with cable length and gauge. A minimum current of around 20 mA dc is
required to convey terminal signaling information to the network. There is also a minimum power level
required to provide adequate volume for the voice signal. A variety of schemes were implemented
before DLC technology to offset the impedance long loops offered to signaling and volume levels. They
included the following:

• Use heavy-gauge conductors - Up to 19 gauge (approximately the gauge of pencil lead), which
is costly and bulky. The heavy-gauge cables yielded far fewer pairs per cable and led to early
congestion in cable routes, especially in bridge crossings and other areas of limited space.

• Increase battery voltage - This violation of operating standards could pose a safety hazard.

• Add amplifiers - Figure 3 illustrates external amplifiers added to power the voice signal on long
loops. Not shown, however, are the volume of auxiliary equipment, the myriad number of cross
wiring points, and the extensive record-keeping requirements.

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• Add signal regeneration and signal extension equipment - The comments regarding amplifiers
apply here as well.

• Add range extension - Range extenders increase line voltage and were integrated with early
Stored Program Control switching systems to reduce costs, but still required special
administrative efforts.

DLC eliminates the need for these remedies by extending the voice frequency (VF) interface out
closer to the customer as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. DLC Alternative vs. Ancillary Electrical Elements

DLC versus Channel Bank Technology

North America's DLC technology was derived from AT&T's D-type channel bank technology,
which was designed to transport trunk and special services circuits between central offices. D-type
channel banks located inside the central office buildings provided certain fault-tolerant features. For
example, technicians were on hand to respond to alarms, and circuits could be routed to other systems
or on other routes when failures occurred. Conversely, DLC remote terminals were deployed in the
outside extremities of the network where no technicians were stationed and alternate routes were
unavailable. Five key characteristics distinguish DLC from channel bank technology:

• Provides larger line sizes (from 96 to 2048 lines vs. D-4 channel bank's 24 lines)
• Forwards alarms from remote terminal site to central office
• Provides span protection switching
• Provides loop testing from centralized test centers
• DLC equipment is designed for the hardened environment

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Channel bank and DLC technologies do share two core functions: signal transformation, i.e.
analog to-digital-conversion ; and signal multiplexing (multiplex is the contraction of two Greek words
meaning "mix" and "many").

The Organization of North America DLC Technology

Figure 4 presents the organization of DLC technology used in North America. However, the
chart may be applied internationally if reference to specific standards such as TR-08 and GR-303 are
omitted.

Figure 4. The Organization of North American DLC Technology

UNIVERSAL DLC VS. INTEGRATED DLC

The first DLC systems were configured as UDLC systems as shown in Figures 2 and 3. UDLC
systems are readily identified by the presence of a central office terminal (COT) and voice frequency
(VF) line interfaces to the local switch. The term "universal" was adopted with the advent of IDLC to
indicate UDLC's flexibility to be used with either analog or digital switching systems. A second
connotation of "UDLC" is that you can use a system from any DLC supplier universally with any other
vendor's switching system because of the VF interface at the central office.

Integrated DLC (IDLC) refers to digital integration of the DLC DS1 spans with a local digital
switch (LDS). Integrating digital switching and digital transmission facilities yields significant equipment
and operational savings collectively referred to as "digital synergy":

• Eliminates the need for analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion at the central office end
• Eliminates the need for the COT and associated:
Capital investment
Maintenance expenses
Space requirements
• Eliminates labor consuming cross-wiring on the main distribution frame (MDF)
• Eliminates faults inadvertently caused by MDF cross-wiring activity

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Figure 5 compares UDLC and IDLC. IDLC systems interface the LDS at the integrated digital
terminal (IDT).

Figure 5. UDLC vs. IDLC

PROPRIETARY INTERFACE VX. OPEN INTERFACE

IDLC systems are supplied as proprietary systems or with open interfaces. Proprietary systems
use a closed interface between the LDS and the RDT and are available from vendors that furnish both
Class 5 switching systems and DLC technology. Vendors strive to differentiate their proprietary
products with features not found with open systems.
Nortel's P-Phone (Proprietary Phone) is one example. P-Phone is not supported on the open TR-08 or
with generic GR-303 interfaces. It is, however, supported on Nortel's proprietary DMS Urban IDLC and
proprietary GR-303 IDLC products.

TR-08
North America's first open IDLC interface was Bellcore's Technical Reference TR-TSY-000008,
"Digital Interface Between the SLC-96 Digital Loop Carrier System and a Local Digital Switch". This
interface, dubbed "TR-08" was first published in July 1984 and the latest publication is Issue 2 dated
August 1987. TR-08, which is based on AT&T's SLC-96 product, describes the interface between a
local digital switch (LDS) and a remote digital terminal (RDT). TR-08 defines three modes of operation:

• Mode I serves up to 96 voice frequency lines multiplexed onto four DS1 signals (96 DS0
channels). Hence, Mode I provides one DS0 for each subscriber line attached to the RDT (no
concentration is provided). Figure 6 illustrates the Mode I architecture including the optional
"Shelf P" for span protection.

• Mode II serves up to 96 voice frequency lines that are multiplexed onto two DS1 signals. The 96
lines are partitioned into two 48-line shelf groups. Each group of 48 lines competes for the 24
DS0 time slots in a single DS1 yielding a 2:1 remote line concentration. Remote line

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concentration saves transmission capacity between the central office and DLC remote terminal
and it saves switching interface equipment. However, Mode II's restricted access and
concentration scheme caused service problems in moderate and heavy telephone traffic
environments. But rural environments could exploit Mode II savings. Carriers who lease feeder
capacity (fiber optic lines, or T lines) may also be interested in Mode II.

• Mode III serves up to 48 coin and D4 type special service circuits. Today Mode III operation
supports limited deployment of older generation coin phones, and party lines. Most modern DLC
products provide support for data, DDS, and other circuits outside the TR-08 interface rendering
Mode III obsolete.

Figure 6. TR-08 IDLC-Mode 1 Architecture

GR-303
Bellcore's GR-303-CORE IDLC Generic Interface was ordained in September 1986 as TR-TSY-
000303 (TR-303) to provide generic requirements and a standard interface for the next generation of
digital loop carrier (NGDLC). It was renamed GR-303 with the September 1995 reissue.

The features and capabilities defined in GR-303 are far more sophisticated than those of its
predecessor, TR-TSY-000008. Bellcore's TR-TSY-000909 (1991) for fiber-in-the-loop (FITL) systems
specified TR-303 as the interface between the host digital terminal (HDT) and the local digital switch
(LDS). More recently, Bellcore's GR-2814-CORE defines a GR-303 interface for Personal
Communications Services (PCS). The major GR-303 features and capabilities include:

• Large line-size RDTs scalable to 2048 lines

• Integrated ISDN BRI
• RDT bandwidth management
• Remote/automated operations support based on OSI/TMN architecture

Fiber in the Loop - "Distributed DLC"

Figure 7 illustrates one of many architectures for deploying fiber in the loop. FITL architectures
vary from simply deploying fiber feeder plant (between central office and remote terminal site); fiber-to-
the-curb as shown in Figure 7; and, ultimately fiber-to-the-home where the optical network unit (ONU) is

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located at each home. Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) architectures have emerged in the past few years to
reduce implementation costs. HFC converts the fiber transmission to standard coaxial transmission at
the remote terminal site.

The purpose of introducing FITL here is to show the functional equivalence between DLC and
FITL. FITL accomplishes the same two primary functions DLC was intended for: pair gain and the
elimination of electrical constraints due to long metallic loops. With FITL, pair gain becomes "fiber gain",
through the use of optical splitters, couplers, or wavelength division multiplex devices.

Figure 7. Fiber-in-the-Loop Architecture

To learn more about Telco Systems’ complete family of EdgeLink® transport and access
solutions for every edge of the network,
visit www.telco.com or call Telco Systems at (781) 255-2250.

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