Self Learning Module - version: 1.

0/2013

SELF LEARNING NOTES

Course Title : SDH Concept & Technology

Course Module : Basic PDH

MODULE OBJECTIVE

This module covers the following topics:

 Introduction to Transmission
 Pulse Code Modulation
 Multiplexing
 Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy

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INTRODUCTION TO TRANSMISSION

This slide show the transmission medium for telecommunication that includes guided (fiber optic,
copper, coaxial) and wireless (water, air) media.

A physical medium in data communications is the transmission path over which a signal propagates.
Many transmission media are used as communications channel.

Transmission media are classified as one of the following:

 Guided (or bounded)—waves are guided along a solid medium such as a transmission line.

 Wireless (or unguided)—transmission and reception are achieved by means of an antenna.

One of the most common physical media used in networking is copper wire. Copper wire use to carry
signals to long distances using relatively low amounts of power. The unshielded twisted pair (UTP) is
eight strands of copper wire, organized into four pairs.

Another example of a physical medium is optical fiber, which has emerged as the most commonly used
transmission medium for long-distance communications. Optical fiber is a thin strand of glass that
guides light along its length. Four major factors favor optical fiber over copper- data rates, distance,
installation, and costs. Optical fiber can carry huge amounts of data compared to copper. It can be run
for hundreds of miles without the need for signal repeaters, in turn, reducing maintenance costs and
improving the reliability of the communication system because repeaters are a common source of
network failures. Glass is lighter than copper allowing for less need for specialized heavy-lifting

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equipment when installing long-distance optical fiber. Optical fiber for indoor applications cost
approximately a dollar a foot, the same as copper.

Multimode and single mode is two types of commonly used optical fiber. Multimode fiber uses LEDs as
the light source and can carry signals over shorter distances, about 2 kilometers. Single mode can carry
signals over distances of tens of miles.

Wireless media may carry surface waves or skywaves, either longitudinally or transversely, and are so
classified.

In both communications, communication is in the form of electromagnetic waves. With guided

transmission media, the waves are guided along a physical path; examples of guided media include
phone lines, twisted pair cables, coaxial cables, and optical fibers. Unguided transmission media are
methods that allow the transmission of data without the use of physical means to define the path it
takes. Examples of this include microwave, radio or infrared. Unguided media provide a means for
transmitting electromagnetic waves but do not guide them; examples are propagation through air,
vacuum and seawater.

The term direct link is used to refer to the transmission path between two devices in which signals
propagate directly from transmitters to receivers with no intermediate devices, other than amplifiers or
repeaters used to increase signal strength. This term can apply to both guided and unguided media.

A transmission may be simplex, half-duplex, or full-duplex.

In simplex transmission, signals are transmitted in only one direction; one station is a transmitter and
the other is the receiver. In the half-duplex operation, both stations may transmit, but only one at a
time. In full duplex operation, both stations may transmit simultaneously. In the latter case, the medium
is carrying signals in both directions at same time.

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This slide shows why optical fiber is a preferred choice as a transmission media for telecommunication.

Why Optical Transmission?

Technology of light traveling in a glass fiber

• Immune to electrical interference.
• Less bulky than other cables
• Signal travels longer distances.

With this advances technology

• Cost has become very low
• Huge amount of information can be transmitted on a single
fiber core.
• Sending more information on metal wire means sending it
a shorter distance.
• Fiber have infinite capacity.

Among the main reasons for the fiber optic cable has gained a place as a major medium of transmission
over copper cable is;

1. Low emission depletion (Low Transmission Loss) - The use of fiber optic cable is more suitable for
long-distance network besides the local network because of its transmission drop lower than kurprum
cable. In theory, only copper cable capable of maintaining signal quality only up to 5 km distance from
the exchange. While optical fiber is able to go even further up to 100km.

2. Wide bandwidth (Wide Bandwidth) - wide bandwidth can only be given by a fiber optic cable over
copper cable and in theory, the size of the fiber optic broadband can reach terabits per second.

3. Size small, lightweight cable (Cable Small size and Weight) - The size of the fiber core (Core) that can
accommodate small service up to 64 clients (if the concept of GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network)),
while there were only about kurprum cable services provide 1 pair (pair) copper for one customer only.

4. Not affected by the induction eletro - magnetic (Immunity to electro-magnetic interference) - over
copper cable using an electrical signal as a signal transmission, fiber optic light signals that are not
directly affected by electro-magnetic induction.

5. Not produce induction (non-inductive) - same situation as reality (4), which uses fiber cable does not
produce a light signal can affect the quality of the induced telecommunication signals

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6. Cost for the long term is low (Long term cost advantage) - investment in optical fiber is able to give
good returns due to the low cost compared to copper penyelengaraannya. Durability of fiber optic cable
is estimated to be up to 20 years.

PULSE CODE MODULATION (PCM)

This slide shows the definition of PCM and the process that consist of sampling, quantizing and
encoding.

PCM Process

Pulse code modulation (PCM) is a digital scheme for transmitting analog data. The signals in PCM are
binary; that is, there are only two possible states, represented by logic 1 (high) and logic0 (low). This is
true no matter how complex the analog waveform happens to be. Using PCM, it is possible to digitize all
forms of analog data, including full-motion video, voices, music, telemetry, and virtual reality (VR).

To obtain PCM from an analog waveform at the source (transmitter end) of a communications circuit,
the analog signal amplitude is sampled (measured) at regular time intervals. The sampling rate, or
number of samples per second, is several times the maximum frequency of the analog waveform in
cycles per second or hertz.

The instantaneous amplitude of the analog signal at each sampling is rounded off to the nearest of
several specific, predetermined levels. This process is called quantization. The number of levels is always
a power of 2 -- for example, 8, 16, 32, or 64. These numbers can be represented by three, four, five, or

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six binary digits (bits) respectively. The output of a pulse code modulator is thus a series of binary
numbers, each represented by some power of 2bits.

At the destination (receiver end) of the communications circuit, a pulse code demodulator converts the
binary numbers back into pulses having the same quantum levels as those in the modulator. These
pulses are further processed to restore the original analog waveform.

Slide shows the sampling process in PCM.

Sampling process

The analog signal is sampled 8000 times per secand. The rate which the analog signal is sampled is
related to the highest frequency present the signal. This is based on the Nyquist sampling thorem. In his
calculations, Nyquist used a voice frequency range of 4000 Hz (which contains ‘intelligent’ speech). Thus,
the standard became a sampling rate of 8000 Hz, or twice the bandwidth. The signal that is the result of
the sampling process contains sufficient information to accurately represent the information contained
in the original signal. The output of this sampling procedure is a Pulse Amplitude Modulated, or PAM,
signal.

PCM samples the analog waves 8000 times per second and converts each sample into an 8-bit number,
resulting in a 64 Kbps data stream sampling rate is twice the 4KHz bandwidth required for a toll-quality
conversation.

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MULTIPLEXING

This slide brieftly explain about multiplexing in telecommunication.

Multiplexing

In telecommunications and computer networks, multiplexing (also known as muxing) is a method by

which multiple analogue message signals or digital data streams are combined into one signal over
a shared medium. The aim is to share an expensive resource. For example, in telecommunications,
several telephone calls may be carried using one wire. Multiplexing originated in telegraphy in the
1870s, and is now widely applied in communications.

The multiplexed signal is transmitted over a communication channel, which may be a physical
transmission medium. The multiplexing divides the capacity of the high-level communication channel
into several low-level logical channels, one for each message signal or data stream to be transferred. A
reverse process, known as demultiplexing, can extract the original channels on the receiver side.

A device that performs the multiplexing is called a multiplexer (MUX), and a device that performs the
reverse process is called a demultiplexer (DEMUX).

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This slide shows why multiplexing is needed in telecommunication.

Overview of Multiplexing

Without multiplexing
•Each telephone call needed its own link to be transmitted.
•Many telephone calls needed many links,

Result “Expensive”

• Multiplexing enables several telephone calls or Data to be sent on the same line.

• The end users have the illusion of being on their own private link.

• Multiplexing creates a virtual telephone link for all of the users

• The result is more efficient and cheaper network cost

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This slide shows the categories of multiplexing.

Categories of multiplexing

Multiplexing can be categorized to analog and digital categories. We will discuss further for FDM and
TDM only.

Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) - Is the process of translating individual speech circuits (300-
3400Hz) into pre assigned slots within the bandwith of transmission medium. And, the preassigned slots
are always available to each user

Figure 1- Frequency-division multiplexing (FDM): The spectrum of each input signal is shifted to a distinct frequency range.

Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) - The process where a transmission medium is shared by a number of
circuits in time domain by establishing a sequence of time slots during which individual channels can be
transmitted. Thus the entire bandwidth is periodically available to each channel

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Figure 2 Time-division multiplexing (TDM)

This slide shows TDM process for 2Mbps PCM

Time Division Multiplex (TDM)

Time Division Multiplex (TDM) is a technique of transmitting multiple digitized data, voic, and video
signals simultaneously over one communication media by interleaving pulses representing bits from
different channels or time slots. The basic channel bandwidth in the telecommunication is level 0, which
channel width of 64kbps.

E1 TDM provides a 2.048Mbps communications link divided into 32 slots of 64kbps each. T1 TDM
provides a 1.544Mbps communication link divided into 24 slots of 64kbps each and an 8kbps channel for
synchronization and maintenance. E1 and T1 TDM were first used by telephone companies for the
transport of digitized voice, but since there is no difference between digitized voiced and other kinds of
data E1 and T1 TDM are now also usd for wide area network links.

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This slide shows 2Mbps PCM frame

2Mbit/s PCM Frame

Each 2 Mb/s frame contains 256 bits (32 timeslots, each of 8 bits) at a repetition rate of exactly 8 kb/s.
The first timeslot (timeslot zero, TS0) is reserved for framing, errorchecking and alarm signals, and the
remaining 31 can be used for traffic. The individual channels can be used for 64 kb/s PCM, subdivided
further for low-rate data or voice compression such as ADPCM (Adaptive Differential PCM) or
aggregated for wideband signals such as videoconferencing or LAN interconnection. Sometimes a
timeslot (such as TS16) is reserved for signaling - for example ISDN primary rate D-channel signaling such
as Q.931 or Digital Private Network Signaling System (DPNSS), or channel associated ABCD signaling.

Figure 3: Primary Framing Structure

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PLESIOCHRONOUS DIGITAL HIERARCHY

This slide shows the meaning of plesiochronous

PDH – Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy

Plesio- means ‘almost’ but truth is that each PDH island

has its own clock: the result is an unsyncronized network

The plesiochronous digital hierarchy (PDH) is a technology used in telecommunications networks to

transport large quantities of data over digital transport equipment such as fibre optic and microwave
radio systems. The term plesiochronous is derived from Greek plēsios, meaning near, and chronos, time,
and refers to the fact that PDH networks run in a state where different parts of the network are nearly,
but not quite perfectly, synchronised.

PDH is typically being replaced by synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) equipment in most
telecommunications networks.

PDH allows transmission of data streams that are nominally running at the same rate, but allowing some
variation on the speed around a nominal rate. By analogy, any two watches are nominally running at the
same rate, clocking up 60 seconds every minute. However, there is no link between watches to
guarantee they run at exactly the same rate, and it is highly likely that one is running slightly faster than
the other.

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This slide shows PDH systems that are used worldwide.

PDH System Worldwide

There were three PDH system that has been used worldwide; Japan, USA and Europe. The one that used
in Telekom Malaysia is European standard.

Figure 4: PDH European Standard

Description of European E-Carrier System

2 Mbit/s service signals are multiplexed to 140 Mbit/s for transmission over optical fiber or radio.
Multiplexing of 2 Mbit/s to 140 Mbit/s requires two intermediate multiplexing stages of 8 Mbit/s and 34
Mbit/s. Multiplexing of 2 Mbit/s to 140 Mbit/s requires multiplex equipment known as 2, 3 and 4 DME.
Alarm and performance management requires separate equipment in PDH.

The basic data transfer rate is a stream of 2048 Kbps. For speech transmission, this is broken down into
30 x 64 Kbps channels plus 2 x 64 Kbps channels used for signalling and synchronization. Alternatively,
the whole 2 Mbps may be used for non speech purposes, for example, data transmission. The exact data

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rate of the 2 Mbps data stream is controlled by a clock in the equipment generating the data. The exact
rate is allowed to vary some percentage (+/- 50 ppm) either side of an exact 2.048 Mbps.

With multiplexing signals, the clock rate on each stream within the multiplex can vary very slightly. This
can occur for a number of reasons, and is sometimes referred to as "jitter".

When a multiplexed stream arrives, there has to be a mechanism for reconstituting the various streams
into the original signal form. With signals arriving at various different end-times, there has to be a way
to get them all to be available for inverse multiplexing in a simultaneous manner, so PDH bit-stuffs the
signals until they are all the same length, at which point they can be successfully demultiplexed. The
stuffed bits are then discarded.

RUJUKAN

1. Books

Mike Sexton, Andy Reid: “Broadband Networking: ATM, SDH, and SONET” Artech House,
1997. ISBN 0-89006-578-0

Stamatios V. Kartalopoulos: “Understanding SONET/SDH and ATM” IEEE, 1999; ISBN

0780347455

Dave Johnson, et al.: “The Evolution of a Reliable Transport Network” IEEE Communications
Magazine, August 1999, pp.52-57.

Jose Caballero, et al. Installation and Maintenance of SDH/SONET, ATM, xDSL and
Synchronisation Networks, Artech House Aug. 2003

2. Web
ITU-T standards
http://www.itu.int
ETSI standards
http://www.etsi.org

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