BASICS OF

TELECOMMUNICATION

Reference Book:Telecommunication
System Engineering – R.L. Freeman
 Chapter 1- INTRODUCTION -Topic 1
• Telecommunication means providing electrical communication at a
distance. The service may be provided privately or by government
telephone companies that latter sell the service publicly.
• Telecommunication Networks
The networks have traditionally been based on speech operations known as
the public switched telecommunication network (PSTN) consists of
hundreds of interconnected “fixed” and “mobile” networks. Though the
wired and wireless portions of the network sometimes compete, one may
also serve as a backup for the other upon failure.
Another network type has gained great importance is the enterprise network.
It can just as well support the government enterprise as a private business. Its
most common configuration is a local area network (LAN) and wide area
network (WAN) and is optimized for data communications.
 Chapter1 - THE SIMPLE TELEPHONE CONNECTION - Topic2

The common telephone consists of a handset made up of two electro-acoustic transducers and
its cradle with a signaling device, consisting of either a dial or push buttons. The telephone set
is connected to the central battery by a wire pair.

When the handset is on the base/cradle (on-hook), the cradle switches are open but the bell with
the 2 µF capacitor in series is connected across the lines. So, when ringing signal comes from
the ring generator of the exchange, the bell rings but no current flows through the rest of the
telephone-set arrangement. When the handset/cradle is off the base/cradle (off-hook), the cradle
switches are closed and the exchange detects a steady dc loop current flow through the line. The
 THE SIMPLE TELEPHONE CONNECTION
• The transmitter requires a direct-current (dc) potential, usually on the order of 3–5 V, across
its electrodes supplied by the talk battery/ central battery over the line from the switching
center/ central office and has been standardized at −48 V dc. The transmitter/mouthpiece
converts acoustic energy into electric energy eventually resulting a pulsating direct current.

The transmitting current divides equally in L1 and L2. The magnetic field produced by these
two windings are nearly equal and opposite in direction and hence cancels each others effect,
thus nearly no emf is induced in L3. Thus the sidetone is fairly reduced.
When the receiving current passes through L1 and L2, the magnetic field produced are in the
same direction inducing a greater emf induced in the receiver.
 THE SIMPLE TELEPHONE CONNECTION
Two telephone handsets are connected to that all-important talk battery
located in the central office through a pair of wires .

There are two limiting factors to the extension of the wire pair between
the handsets. These are the IR drop, limiting the voltage across the
handset transmitter, and the attenuation. For 19-gauge wire, the
limiting distance is about 10 km. If the limiting characteristic is
attenuation and we desire to extend the pair farther, amplifiers and
 ELEMENTS OF TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEM
By system we mean the interaction of one element with another to reach a certain
objective. One of the basic elements of telecommunication system is the customer
premises equipment/ telephone set that we have already discussed. We call the
holder of a telephone station a subscriber. The loop/line connecting them to the
switch is called subscriber loop/ subscriber line/ line.
Telecommunication system engineering has traditionally been broken down
into two basic elements: transmission and switching. Transmission is the
process of delivering of a quality electrical signal from point X to point Y .
Switching is the means of connecting X to Y , rather than to Z. Switch is
defined as a device that connects inlets to outlets. The inlet may be a calling
subscriber line interface and the outlet may be the line interface of a called
subscriber. Switch really does in this case is to reduce the transmission cost outlay
by reducing no. of links between subscribers. The means of selecting and alerting
a particular subscriber is signaling.
 Ch 1 - TELEPHONE NETWORKS: INTRODUCTORY TERMINOLOGY - Topic 4
Telephone network is regarded as a systematic development of interconnecting
transmission facilities arranged so that one telephone user can talk to any other
within that network. Subscribers share common transmission facilities of the
telephone network. Switches located in the local exchange permit the first step of
sharing by concentration. The subscriber’s telephone line is connected to the
network via the local exchange or central office. A local exchange has a
geographical serving area known as local area, all subscribers in that area are
served by that exchange.
Toll area, is that geographical area containing a number of local exchanges and
inside which any subscriber can call any other subscriber without incurring tolls
(extra charges for a call). Such a call is often termed as local call.
Toll calls and long-distance calls are synonymous. In European practice a long-
distance call, is one involving the dialing of additional digits (e.g., more than six
or seven digits). The telephone lines connecting one telephone switch or exchange
with another are called trunks in North America and junctions in Europe.
 TELEPHONE NETWORKS: INTRODUCTORY TERMINOLOGY

A city/toll area may be divided into one or more local areas. The local exchanges are
connected to a long-distance/ Toll exchange which is connected to other tolls.

Most of the telephone activity (the traffic) will be among the subscribers of a local
exchanges or among those of a city. There will be some traffic, but considerably
less, from one exchange or city to the other. Concentration is a line-to-trunk ratio.
For example, if there are 100 lines to 6 trunks (or junctions), the concentration is
 Chapter 1 - ESSENTIALS OF TRAFFIC ENGINEERING – Topic 5.1-5.6
Telephone exchanges are connected by trunks or junctions. The number of trunks
connecting exchange X with exchange Y is the number of voice pairs or their
equivalent used in the connection. To determine the number of trunks required on
a route or connection between exchanges is called dimensioning the route.
To dimension a route correctly, we must have some idea of its usage and the usage
may be defined by two parameters:
(1) calling rate - the number of times a route or traffic path is used per unit
period, or, more properly defined, “the call intensity per traffic path during the
busy hour” and
(2) holding time - “the duration of occupancy of a traffic path by a call,”
A traffic path is “a channel, time slot, frequency band, line, trunk, switch, or
circuit over which individual communications pass in sequence.”
When dimensioning telephone exchanges and transmission routes, we shall be
working with BH traffic levels.
 ESSENTIALS OF TRAFFIC ENGINEERING
We define telephone traffic as the aggregate of originated/offered calls over
a group of circuits/trunks or carried calls with regard to the duration of calls
as well as their number.
We can measure telephone traffic as traffic intensity A = C × T
where C designates the number of calls during a period of 1 h and T is the
average holding time, usually given in hours.
A is a dimensionless unit because we are multiplying calls/hour by hour/call,
but we often write its unit as ”erlang ”.
One erlang represents a circuit occupied for 1 h.
In a local switch the number of calls in an hour is 1800 • The mean holding
time of a call is 3 min
Then A = 1800 x 3 / 60 = 90 erlang; a load of 90 erlang may be created by a
population of some 2250 - 9000 private subscribers.
 Blockage, Lost Calls, and Grade of Service
Offered traffic is the traffic which is offered to be carried with no constraints in
the system and Carried traffic is the traffic that is actually being carried
Blocked/lost traffic is difference between the offered and carried traffic.
We could far over dimension the switch such that it could handle any sort of
traffic peaks. However, that is uneconomical. So with a well-designed switch,
during the busiest of BHs we may expect some moments of congestion such that
additional call attempts will meet blockage.
Grade of service expresses the probability of meeting blockage during the BH
and is expressed by the letter p.
Grade of service = Number of lost calls/Total number of offered calls
A typical grade of service is p = 0.01. This means that an average of one call in
100 will be blocked or “lost” during the BH.
 Blockage, Lost Calls, and Grade of Service
The probability of blockage depends on a number of factors, the most
important of which are
(1) the distribution in time and duration of traffic (e.g., random or periodic
arrival of offered traffic and constant or exponentially distribution of holding
time). Generally telephone-call originations in any particular area are
independent random events. The traffic is said pure chance traffic. Call-
holding time has a negative exponential distribution
(2) the availability of trunks in a group to traffic sources (full or restricted
availability). Switches have interfaces called “inlets” and “outlets.” When a
switch has full availability, each inlet has access to any outlet. When not all
the free outlets in a switching system can be reached by inlets, the switching
system is referred to as one with “limited availability.”
 Blockage, Lost Calls, and Grade of Service
(3) the number of traffic sources present at the exchange. It might be limited or high enough
(considered as infinite).
• For the case of infinite traffic sources, the probability of call arrival is constant and does
not depend on the state of occupancy of the system.
• For the case of finite sources is when the number of sources offering traffic to a group of
trunks or circuits is comparatively small in comparison to the number of circuits.
(4) the manner in which lost calls are “handled.” It might be LCH, LCC or LCD.
• The LCH concept assumes that the telephone user will immediately reattempt the call on
receipt of a congestion signal and will continue to redial. i.e. lost calls are held or waiting at
the user’s telephone.
• The LCC concept assumes that the user will hang up and wait some time interval before
reattempting if the user hears the congestion signal on the first attempt. Such calls, it is
assumed, disappear from the system. A reattempt (after the delay) is considered as initiating
a new call.
• The LCD concept assumes that the user is automatically put in queue (a waiting line or
 Chapter 1 - Traffic Formulas – Topic 6
The following is the notation used in the formulas given below:
• A = The expected traffic intensity, expressed in busy hour erlangs.
• P = The probability that calls will be lost/delayed because of insufficient channels.
• n = The number of channels in the group of channels.
• s = The number of sources in the group of sources.
• x = A variable representing a number of busy sources or busy channels.
• e = The Naperian logarithmic base, which is the constant 2.71828
With the following assumptions: (1) infinite sources (2) equal traffic density per
source and (3) lost calls held (LCH)
The Poissons formula is,
 Traffic Formulas
The Erlang B formula assumes (1) infinite sources (2) equal traffic density per
source and (3) lost calls cleared (LCC). The formula is

The Erlang C formula, commonly used with digital switching where one would
expect to find queues, assumes (1) infinite sources (2) lost calls delayed (LCD) (3)
exponential holding times.