Chapter 5

Voice Communication
Concepts and
Technology
Voice Network Concepts
 Telephone calls are connected from
source via circuit switching.
 Circuit switching originally meant that a
physical electrical circuit was created
from the source to the destination.
 The modern telephone system is
commonly known as the Public
Switched Telephone Network or
PSTN
Voice Concepts

 Getting voice onto and off of the network

Voice Bandwidth

 Telephone voice bandwidth is more narrow than

can actually be heard by most people.
Basic Infrastructure

 The circuit between the central office and

customer is called the local loop
 The local loop is the only remaining analog
component in the system.
Basic Infrastructure
 Telephone calls are established by a
device located at the local telephone
companies Central Office (CO) known as
a telephone switch
 All voice traffic destined for locations
outside of the local LATA must be
handed off to the Long Distance or
Inter-Exchange carrier (IXC) of the
customer's choice
PSTN Network Hierarchy
PSTN Network Hierarchy
 Original AT&T system was
organized in a 5 class hierarchy –
still a standard.
 Local CO is lowest level
 Regional center is highest level
Telephone Number Plans
 Telephone numbers are a hierarchical
address method.
 United States telephone numbers can
be broken into three basic parts: a three
digit area code, a three digit exchange,
and a four digit subscriber number.
 To make a telephone call at a minimum
the exchange plus the subscriber
number must be dialed.
System Signaling
 In addition to carrying the actual
voice signals, the telephone system
must also carry information about
the call itself.
 This is referred to as system
signaling or inter-office signaling.
 There are two approaches to system
signaling: in band and out of band
Touch-Tone Dialing
Signaling System 7
Protocols

 SS7 mapped to the OSI model

SS7
 - controls the structure and transmission
of both circuit-related and non-circuit
related information via out-of-band
signaling between central office switches.

 - delivers the out-of-band signaling via a

packet switched network physically
separate from the circuit switched
network that carries the actual voice
traffic.
Voice Digitization
 The analog POTS system has been
supplanted in the modern telephone system
by a combination of analog and digital
transmission technologies.
 Converting a voice conversation to digital
format and back to analog form before it
reaches its destination is completely
transparent to phone network users
 There are a limited ways the electrical
pulses can be varied to represent an analog
signal
Voice Digitization

 Pulse Amplitude Modulation

Voice Digitization

 Pulse duration modulation

Voice Digitization

 Pulse position modulation

Voice Digitization

 Signal to be digitalized …
Voice Digitization

 Pulse code modulation

Voice Transmission
Alternatives
 Although the PSTN has traditionally
been seen as the cheapest and
most effective way to transmit
voice, alternative methods for
voice transmission do exist.
 VoIP
 Frame Relay
 ATM
Voice over IP (VoIP)
Frame Relay

 Voice over Frame Relay

ATM

 Voice over ATM

ISDN
 ISDN (Integrated Services Digital
Network) is a switched digital service
that is also capable of transmitting
voice and data simultaneously.
 ISDN BRI (Basic Rate Interface) service
offers two 64Kbps channels.
 One of these channels is used for data
while the other is used to
simultaneously transmit voice.
ISDN

 Simultaneous voice/data with ISDN

Wireless Voice
Transmission
 Modern wireless telephones are
based on a cellular model.
 A wireless telephone system
consists of a series of cells that
surround a central base station, or
tower.
 The term “cellular phone” or “cell
phone” comes from the cellular
nature of all wireless networks.
Wireless Voice
Transmission

 Analog cellular has broadest US coverage.

 Limitations…
Analog Cellular
 Advanced Mobile Phone Service
(AMPS)
 operate in the 800MHz frequency range.
 have significant limitations …
 offer relatively poor signal quality
 static and interference are inherent with
the system
 can handle relatively few concurrent
calls per cell
Wireless Voice
Transmission

 Elements of digital cellular

Digital Cellular
 carriers have steadily moved to digital
cellular systems
 the call is digitized at the telephone
handset and sent in a digital format to
the tower
 quality is greatly improved
 more calls to share the common
bandwidth in a cell concurrently
 better equipped to support wireless
data transmission
Digital Cellular Standards
 TDMA and CDMA are the two
access methodologies used in
digital cellular systems.
 Both offer significant capacity
increases compared to AMPS
analog cellular systems.
TDMA

 TDMA achieves more than one

conversation per frequency by assigning
timeslots to individual conversations
CDMA

 CDMA attempts to maximize the

number of calls transmitted within a
limited bandwidth by using a spread
spectrum transmission technique
Private Branch Exchange
 A PBX is really just a privately owned,
smaller version of the switch in telephone
company central offices that control
circuit switching for the general public.
 Depending on the requested destination,
switched circuits are established,
maintained and terminated on a per call
basis by the PBX switching matrix.
PBX
PBX

 Call Accounting Systems may be

installed with the PBX
Computer Telephony
Integration
 CTI or seeks to integrate the computer
and the telephone to enable increased
productivity not otherwise possible by
using the two devices in a non-
integrated fashion.
 CTI is not a single application, but an
ever-widening array of possibilities
spawned by the integration of telephony
and computing.
Computer Telephony
Integration

 Desktop CTI
Computer Telephony
Integration

 Client Server CTI

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