Chapter 2: Digital Telecom and Packet

Switching

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Digital Telecom and Packet Switching

Outline:
Introduction
Digital Hierarchy Technologies
Datagram vs. virtual circuit
Frame relay and ATM

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Introduction

A transmission system uses a physical medium to transmit

energy as pulses or changes in voltage, current, or light in-
tensity.

In binary digital transmission, the goal is to transmit a 0

(negative voltage) or a 1 (positive voltage).

The receiver’s task is to accurately determine the input sym-

bol with high probability.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Digital Processing of Analog Signals

Most real-world signals are analog.

continuous in time and amplitude

The voltage or current signals are then converted into digital

signals for digital transmission.
Sampling or analog-to-digital conversions

Finally, the analog signals must be reconstructed at the re-

ceiver.
Reconstruction or digital-to-analog conversion

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)

PCM consists of three steps to digitize an analog signal:

Sampling

Quantization

Binary Encoding

Before we sample, we have to filter the signal to limit the

maximum frequency of the signal as it affects the sampling
rate.

Filtering should ensure that we do not distort the signal,

i.e., remove high frequency components that affect the signal
shape.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)

Figure 1: Components of PCM Encoder

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Sampling

Analog signal is sampled every Ts seconds.

Ts is referred to as the sampling interval.

fs = 1/Ts is called the sampling rate or sampling frequency.

There are 3 sampling methods:

Ideal - an impulse at each sampling instant

Natural - a pulse of short width with varying amplitude

Flattop - sample and hold, like natural but with single am-
plitude value

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Sampling

Figure 2: Three different sampling methods for PCM

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Sampling

Figure 3: Nyquist sampling rate for lowpass and bandpass signals

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Quantization

Sampling results in a series of pulses of varying amplitude

values ranging between two limits: min and max.

We need to map the infinite amplitude values onto a finite

set of known values.

Each sample falling in a zone is then approximated to the

value of the midpoint.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Quantization

The difference between the input and output signals of the

quantizer is known as the quantizing error or quantizing
noise
After quantization, each zone is then assigned a binary
code,E coding

Figure 4: PCM decoder components

Assignment2: Line Coding and Digital Modulation

Techniques.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Multiplexing:

Is a process that combines several signals for simultaneous

transmission on one transmission channel.
It is economically feasible to utilize the available
bandwidth shared by multiple users.

Figure 5: Multiplexing methods FDM and TDM.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Time Division Multiplexing (TDM):

Divides the time into fixed slots for multiple signals.

TDM is mainly used in digital telephony.

Time division multiplexing allows a link to be utilized simul-

taneously by many users.

Figure 6: Time division multiplexing (TDM)

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
TDM:PCM Frame structure :

The transmission is organized into frames.

Each frame contains a fixed number of time slots.

Each time slot is pre-assigned to a specific input link.

The duration of a time slot is either a bit or a byte.

A time slot dedicated to an input link repeats continuously

frame after frame, thus forming a channel or a trunk.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
TDM:PCM Frame structure :

Telephone connection requires channels with approximately

4-kHz bandwidth.

Analog signal sampled 8Kh, sampling rate .

Each sample is quantized 1 of 256 level.

Then encoded in to 8-bite word.

The over all data rate of one speech signal 64Kbps

Voice analog signals are digitized at the end office using

PCM.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
The T-1 and E-1 Carrier System

The T-1 carrier system: North American

It uses a transmission frame that consists of 24 slots of 8
bits each.
The resulting transmission line has a speed of:
24 channels ∗ 64 kbps =
1.536 M bps + 8 kbps f or f raming bits = 1.544 M bps.
The E-1 carrier system: European,
30 channels are typically used for voice or data
transmission.
2 channels are reserved for signaling and framing purposes.
T otal Bit Rate = 32 ∗ 64 = 2.048M bps

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
PDH , SDH , SONET

Rate of 1.5 or 2 Mbps is too slow for transmission in trunk

or even in local networks.

The growth of telephone network traffic and advances in dig-

ital transmission prompted the creation of a standard digital
transmission hierarchy.

There are three basic digital transmission hierarchies.

Plesiochronous digital hierarchy (PDH)

Synchronous digital Hierarchy (SDH)

Synchronous optical network (SONET)

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
PDH in North American

If it is necessary to transmit more than 24 channels, the

system is build-up using the PDH.

Digital Signal (DS) standard is a North American standard

that specifies how to multiplex several voice calls onto a sin-
gle link.

The DS1 signal corresponds to the output of a T-1 multi-

plexer.
It is the basic building block of the digital hierarchy.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
PDH in North American

The DS2 signal is obtained by combining 4 DS1 signals.

The DS3 signal is obtained by combining 28 DS1 signals.

Figure 7: North American digital hierarchy

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PDH in European

The CEPT-1 (also referred to as E-1) signal is an European

standard digital hierarchy building block.

It consists of 32 channels each with a capacity of 64Kbps.

30 channels = used for voice channels
1 channel = used for signaling
1 channel = used for frame alignment and link maintenance

The second, third and fourth levels of the hierarchy are ob-
tained by grouping 4 of the signals in the lower level.

Figure 8: European digital hierarchy

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
SDH and SONET Technologies

Need to mux/demux hierarchy of levels (hard to pull out a

single timeslot)

Overhead percentage increases with rate

American and European standards are not compatible.

So a completely new mechanism was needed

ANSI version = SONET : Synchronous Optical NET work.

ITU version = Synchronous Digital Hierarchy

SDH and SONET are standards for communicating large

quantities of digital information over optical fibers

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
SDH and SONET Technologies

SDH is actually an international extension of SONET and it

was based on SONET but adapted to European networks.

Carry all PDH types in one universal hierarchy

different terminology but interoperable

Overhead doesn’t increase with rate.

The electrical side of the SONET signal is known as the

synchronous transport signal (STS).

The electrical side of the SDH is known as the synchronous

transport module (STM).

optical side of a SONET/SDH signal is the optical carrier

(OC).

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
SDH and SONET Signals

A SONET signal is called a Synchronous Transport Signal.

The basic STS is STS-1, all others are multiples of it.
STS-N The (optical) physical layer signal corresponding to
an STS-N is an OC-N .

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
SONET STS-1 frame

Each STS-1 frame is 90 columns * 9 rows = 810 bytes

There are 8000 STS-1 frames per second
so each byte represents 64 kbps.
Thus the basic STS-1 rate is 51.840 Mbps

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
SDH STM-1 frame

Synchronous Transport Modules are the bit-signals for SDH

Each STM-1 frame is 270 columns * 9 rows = 2430 bytes
There are 8000 STM-1 frames per second
Thus the basic STM-1 rate is 155.520 Mbps
3 times the STS-1 rate!

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
SONET/SDH rates

STS-N has 90N columns STM-M corresponds to STS-N

with N = 3M SDH rates increase by factors of 4 each time
STS/STM signals can carry PDH tributaries,

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Communication networks can be classified based on the

way in which the nodes exchange information:

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Circuit Switching
a dedicated communication path (or circuit) is established
between two stations.

A circuit occupies a fixed capacity of each link for the entire

lifetime of the connection.

Capacity unused by the circuit cannot be used by other cir-

cuits

Data is not delayed at the switches.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Circuit Switching
It involves three phases:Circuit Establishment ,Data Transfer
and Circuit Release

Busy Signal” if capacity for a circuit not available

Telephone networks and ISDN are the most important circuit-

switching networks

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Packet Switching
Data are sent as formatted bit-sequences, so-called packets.
Packets have the following structure

Header and Trailer carry control information

Each packet is passed through the network from node to node

along some path (Forwarding/Routing)

At each node the entire packet is received, stored briefly, and

then forwarded to the next node (Store-and-Forward Net-
works)

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Packet Switching
Packet transmission is never interrupted.

Packet transmission on a link is referred to as statistical mul-

tiplexing

There is no fixed allocation of packet transmissions

Packets are multiplexed as they arrive.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Datagram Packet Switching

The network nodes process each packet independently

implications of datagram packet switching:

A sequence of packets can be received in a different order
than it was sent
Each packet header must contain the full address of the
destination.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Virtual-Circuit Packet Switching

is a hybrid of circuit switching and packet switching
All data is transmitted as packets.

Emulates circuit-switched network.

All packets from one packet stream are sent along a pre es-
tablished path (virtual circuit)
Guarantees in-sequence delivery of packets

Note: Packets from different virtual circuits may be inter-

leaved

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Virtual-Circuit Packet Switching

VC Establishment, Data Transfer and VC Disconnect are
three phases Communication with virtual circuits (VC)

Packet headers don’t need to contain the full destination ad-

dress of the packet

Circuit-switched and virtual-circuit packet-switched networks

are said to provide a connection-oriented service.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Packet Forwarding and Routing

There are two parts to the routing problem:
How to pass a packet from an input interface to the output
interface of a router (packet forwarding).

How to calculate routes (routing algorithm).

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Datagram vs. virtual circuit

Packet Forwarding and Routing

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Frame relay and ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)

is a technology that has some event in the development of
broadband ISDN in the 1970s and 1980s.

is a particular packet-oriented transfer mode.

uses asynchronous TDM techniques with the multiplexed in-

formation flow being organised into blocks of fixed size.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Frame relay and ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)

Cells are transmitted asynchronously and the network is connection-
oriented.

It can handle both constant rate traffic and variable rate

traffic.

It is independent of a transmission medium, they may be sent

on a wire or fiber by themselves or they may also be packaged
inside the payload of other carrier systems.

its networks use “Packet” or “cell” Switching with virtual

circuits.

Its design helps in the implementation of high-performance

multimedia networking

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Frame relay and ATM

ATM Cell Basics

The length of each cell is 53 Bytes

5 bytes are used as the cell header

48 bytes are used as the payload carrying the data(carrying

user information)

Figure 9: Basic ATM cell format

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Frame relay and ATM

ATM :Fixed Length Cell Advantage

Delay or latency is significantly reduced, is suited for voice
and video transmission

make it easier to switch data across multiple networks

Fixed length cell is similar to container based road trans-

portation

to handle real-time applications (like voice or video) effi-

ciently, as the protocol can ensure predictable transmission
times.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Frame relay and ATM
ATM : Protocol reference model
ATM adaptation: convergence segmentation and reassembly

ATM layer:generic flow control,cell header generation/extrac-

tion...

Physical layer:cell-rate decoupling, ,cell delineation ,trans-

mission frame adaptation, transmission frame generation ,re-
covery,bit timing and physical medium recovery.

Figure 10: B-ISDN protocol reference model and the

functions of the layer
IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Frame relay and ATM

Frame Relay
is a network interface, or access, standard that was defined
in 1988 , ITU.

Is connection-oriented access technique for data transport.

Is WAN technology used for connecting devices across large

distances.

Its standards address Layers 1 and 2 of the OSI Reference

Model.

its primary function is to transmit data in packets called

"frames.

Frame Relay statistically multiplexes frames of data over a

shared network of virtual circuits for maximum network effi-
ciency.

IoT,UoG Chapter 2
Frame relay and ATM

Frame Relay
Frame Relay standards specify a frame payload that is vari-
able in length up to 4096 octets.

operates in just the physical and data link layers, and allows
bursty data.

Frame Relay was designed to fill the gap between packet -

switched networks (X.25), circuit - switched networks (Switched
56/64 kbps), and dedicated data networks (DDS, T/E - car-
rier)

IoT,UoG Chapter 2