chapter four

SDH

Prepared by Biruk S. (Msc)

 Multiplexing
 FDM
 TDM
 WDM
 SDH and SONET

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 Multiplexing is a method by which multiple analog or
digital signals are combined into one signal over a
shared medium (MUX )(many to one) )
 (DEMUX) (one to many)

Why
Multiplexing?

 The aim is to share a scarce resource – a physical

transmission medium
 Multiplexing allows for efficient and easy
communication, resource sharing and utilization
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 Multiplexing can be done by separating signals in time or
frequency
 Multiplexing originated from telegraphy in the 1870s
and is now widely used in telecommunications to carry
several phone calls over a single line.

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 Analog and digital signals
 Analog and digital signals are two types of signals used to
transmit information.
 The major difference between both signals is that analog
signals have continuous electrical signals, while
digital signals have non-continuous electrical
signals.

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 An analog signal represents a continuous wave that keeps
changing over a time period, and is always represented by
the continuous sine wave.
 On the other hand, a digital signal represents a non-
continuous wave that carries information in a binary
format and has discrete values, and is represented by
square waves.

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 A multiplexing technique by which multiple data signals
can be transmitted over a common communication
channel in different time slots is known as Time
Division Multiplexing (TDM).
 It allows the division of the overall time domain into
various fixed length time slots.

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TDM system
 The figure below shows the block diagram of a TDM
system employing both transmitter and receiver section.

Aliasing?

 These low pass filters are basically anti-aliasing filters that

eliminate the aliasing of the data input signal.
 The output of the LPF is then fed to the commutator.
As per the rotation of the commutator the samples of
the data inputs are collected by it.
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 Implementation of TDM
 The technique of time division multiplexing can be
implemented in basically two ways:

 Synchronous TDM: In this technique, the time slots are

assigned at the beginning, irrespective of the idea
about the presence of data at the source.
 Each device is given the same Time Slot to transmit
the data over the link, whether the
device has any data to transmit or not.
 If there are n sending devices
there will be n slots in frame.
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 Each device places its data onto the link when
its Time Slot arrives, each device is given the
possession of line turn by turn.
 If any device does not have data to send then its
time slot remains empty.

Drawback of
Synchronous TDM?

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 Each device places its data onto the link when
its Time Slot arrives, each device is given the possession of
line turn by turn.
 If any device does not have data to send then its
time slot remains empty.

 This leads to the wastage of the channel capacity. As in

the absence of any data unit, that particular time slot gets
entirely wasted.
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 Asynchronous TDM: It is also termed as statistical or
intelligent TDM technique as it eliminates the drawback
of wastage of time slot present in synchronous TDM.

 Here, a particular frame is transmitted by the transmitting

end only when it gets completely filled by the data units.
 It exhibits higher efficiency than that of synchronous
TDM technique
 It requires smaller transmission time and ensures
better bandwidth utilization.
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 Advantages of TDM
 Simple circuit design.
 It uses entire channel bandwidth for the transmission of
the signal.
 The problem of Intermodulation distortion is not
present in TDM. Intermodulation
Disadvantages of TDM distortion?

 The transmitting and receiving section must be properly

synchronized in order to have proper signal transmission
and reception.
Applications TDM finds its application mainly in a digital
communication system, in cellular radio and in satellite
communication system.
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 FDM is a multiplexing technique in which multiple separate
information signals can be transmitted over a single
communication channel by occupying different
frequency slots within common channel bandwidth.

 In FDM simultaneous transmission of the signal takes

place over a common channel in which the channel
bandwidth is divided into various sub-channels
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FDM Transmitter Section
 Now, let’s have a look at the working of the transmitter
section of Frequency division multiplexer.

Modulator?

 The numerous signals that are to be transmitted along a

common channel modulate different carriers in the
modulating section.
 The output of the modulator will have multiple
signals of different carrier frequency.
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 The modulated signals are then fed to a linear mixer
which is different from a normal mixer
 Linear mixer simply produces the algebraic sum of the
generated modulated signals.
 The combined signal at the output of the mixer is then
transmitted along a single channel.

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FDM Receiver
 Now, the receiver section will have a composite signal
that was transmitted by the linear mixer over a channel.
 This composite signal is then fed to different filters
mainly BPF each having a center frequency
corresponding to the carrier frequency.

demodulator?
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 The BPF passes the channel information without any
distortion.
 BPF rejects signals of all other frequencies and accepts
the signal of the desired center frequency.
 Further, the signals after being processed by the BPF
goes to individual demodulator section where
 demodulation of the signals takes place to separate
modulating signal from that of the carrier signal.
 So, after demodulation, we can have separate signals that
were actually transmitted over the same channel.

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Advantages:
 It is a synchronization-free technique as we don’t need
synchronization between transmitter and receiver.
 It facilitates the transmission of a large number of
signals simultaneously.
 FDM demodulation is easy.
Disadvantages:
 The channel bandwidth required is large.
 It can result in crosstalk as several signals are
transmitted during the same time interval.
 It can cause intermodulation distortion.
 To prevent the interference caused during FDM we use
guard bands which is of range 0 to 4KHz and these are
the unused portion of the spectrum. 3
Applications of FDM
FDM is used for FM & AM radio broadcasting.
AM frequency = 530 to 1700 kHz.
FM frequency = 88 to 108 MHz.
FDM is used in television broadcasting.
First generation cellular telephone also uses FDM

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 It is a technique in which signals of different
wavelength are multiplexed together in order to get
transmitted over an optical link.
 The concept of WDM was arrived in 1970.
 Basically, the technique acts in a way that signals get
combined using a multiplexer (optical combiner) and
then allowed to propagate using a single cable.

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Working of WDM System
 As we have already discussed that the technique involves
combining of optical signals. So, in this section we will
discuss how transmission of signal is performed using
WDM.

 Here as we can see that signals generated from 5

different sources are combined using multiplexer. These
multiplexed signals are then allowed to get transmitted
over an optical fiber cable.
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 Once the signal gets propagated then at the other end it
must be separated. So, for this a de-multiplexer is used to
separate the signals at the other end.
 The de-multiplexer separates the combined signal into
multiple signals of different wavelengths.
 It is to be noted here that a single optical cable offers a
bandwidth of about 25,000 GHz. Thus this permits
multiplexing of various signals from sources for long
distance propagation.
How data transformed to
optical signal and vice
versa?

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 The WDM technique is mainly classified into two
categories:

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 The WDM technique is mainly classified into two
CWDM: stand for Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing.
 Here the number of channels supported by the system is
more as compared to standard wavelength division
multiplexing technique.
 The different channels are separated at wavelength
around 20 nm.
 It is cost efficient and has the ability to support 18
channels over a single optical link.
 It is used for distance up to 120 Km which is more than
WDM.
 The wavelength range in case of CWDM is 1280 nm to
1650 nm.
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DWDM: DWDM stands
for Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing.
 This technique supports more number of channel as
compared to CWDM. As the number of channels are
densely arranged thus it is named so.
 The wavelength spacing between the channels is small
nearly around 0.4 nm. Also it is comparatively more
efficient than both WDM and CWDM.
 It supports wavelength range from 1450 nm to 1650 nm.

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Advantages of WDM
 WDM is a quite simple technique.
 The optical link provides greater bandwidth.
 It allows secured transmission of optical signal.
 This technique increases the signal carrying capacity of
the system.
Disadvantages of WDM
 The presence of optical component increases the overall
cost of the system.
 Proper wavelength spacing must be required otherwise it
will lead to signal interference.

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SONET : Synchronous Optical Network
SDH: Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
SONET was developed by ANSI;
SDH was developed by ITU-T

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Signals
 SONET defines a hierarchy of electrical signaling levels
called synchronous transport signals (STSs).
 Each STS level (STS-1 to STS-192) supports a certain
data rate, specified in megabits per second SDH
specifies a similar system called a synchronous
transport module (STM).

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3
SONET Devices

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 An STS multiplexer multiplexes signals from multiple
electrical sources and creates the corresponding OC
signal.
 An STS demultiplexer demultiplexes an optical OC
signal into corresponding electric signals.
 Regenerators extend the length of the links. A
regenerator is a repeater
 Add/drop multiplexers allow insertion and extraction of
signals.
 A terminal is a device that uses the services of a
SONET network.

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Connections
The devices defined in the previous section are connected
using sections, lines, and paths.
Sections
A section is the optical link connecting two neighbor
devices: multiplexer to multiplexer, multiplexer to
regenerator, or regenerator to regenerator.
Lines
A line is the portion of the network between two
multiplexers: STS multiplexer to add/ drop multiplexer, two
add/drop multiplexers, or two STS multiplexers.

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Paths
A path is the end-to-end portion of the network between
two STS multiplexers. In a simple SONET of two STS
multiplexers linked directly to each other, the section, line,
and path are the same.

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SONET layers compared with OSI or the Internet
layers

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Path Layer

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Line Layer

Section Layer

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Photonic Layer

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SONET FRAMES
Each synchronous transfer signal STS-n is composed of
8000 frames. Each frame is a two-dimensional matrix of
bytes with 9 rows by 90 × n columns.
For example, STS-1 frame is 9 rows by 90 columns (810
bytes), and an STS-3 is 9 rows by 270 columns (2430 bytes).

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Note there is an exact relationship between the data rates of
different STS signals. We could have found the data rate of
STS-3 by using the data rate of STS-1 (mul. the latter by 3).
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END