Public switched telephone network

The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the

aggregate of the worlds circuit-switched telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local
telephony operators, providing infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. The PSTN consists
of telephone lines, ber optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables, all interconnected by
switching centers, thus allowing most telephones to communicate with each other. Originally a network of xedline analog telephone systems, the PSTN is now almost
entirely digital in its core network and includes mobile
and other networks, as well as xed telephones.[1]

A. K. Erlang established the mathematical foundations of

methods required to determine the capacity requirements
and conguration of equipment and the number of personnel required to deliver a specic level of service.
In the 1970s the telecommunications industry began implementing packet switched network data services using
the X.25 protocol transported over much of the end-toend equipment as was already in use in the PSTN.

In the 1980s the industry began planning for digital services assuming they would follow much the same pattern
as voice services, and conceived a vision of end-to-end
circuit switched services, known as the Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (B-ISDN). The B-ISDN
The technical operation of the PSTN adheres to the stan- vision has been overtaken by the disruptive technology of
dards created by the ITU-T. These standards allow dier- the Internet.
ent networks in dierent countries to interconnect seamlessly. The E.163 and E.164 standards provide a single At the turn of the 21st century, the oldest parts of the teleglobal address space for telephone numbers. The com- phone network still use analog technology for the last mile
bination of the interconnected networks and the single loop to the end user. Digital services have been increasnumbering plan allow telephones around the world to dial ingly rolled out to end users using services such as DSL,
ISDN, FTTx, cable modem, and online fax[2] systems.
each other.
Several large private telephone networks are not linked
to the PSTN, usually for military purposes. There are
also private networks run by large companies which are
1 History
linked to the PSTN only through limited gateways, such
as a large private branch exchange (PBX).
The rst telephones had no network but were in private
use, wired together in pairs. Users who wanted to talk to
dierent people had as many telephones as necessary for
the purpose. A user who wished to speak whistled loudly
into the transmitter until the other party heard.
However, a bell was added soon for signaling, so an attendant no longer need wait for the whistle, and then a
switch hook. Later telephones took advantage of the exchange principle already employed in telegraph networks.
Each telephone was wired to a local telephone exchange,
and the exchanges were wired together with trunks. Networks were connected in a hierarchical manner until they
spanned cities, countries, continents and oceans. This
was the beginning of the PSTN, though the term was not
used for many decades.

2 Operators
The task of building the networks and selling services to
customers fell to the network operators. The rst company to be incorporated to provide PSTN services was
the Bell Telephone Company in the United States.

In some countries, however, the job of providing telephone networks fell to government as the investment required was very large and the provision of telephone service was increasingly becoming an essential public utility.
For example, the General Post Oce in the United Kingdom brought together a number of private companies to
The growth of the PSTN meant that teletrac engineer- form a single nationalized company. In recent decades
ing techniques needed to be deployed to deliver quality however, these state monopolies were broken up or sold
of service (QoS) guarantees for the users. The work of o through privatization.
Automation introduced pulse dialing between the phone
and the exchange, and then among exchanges, followed
by more sophisticated address signaling including multifrequency, culminating in the SS7 network that connected
most exchanges by the end of the 20th century.

Regulation

REFERENCES

to this channel is Digital Signal 0 (DS0). The DS0 circuit is the basic granularity of circuit switching in a telephone exchange. A DS0 is also known as a timeslot because DS0s are aggregated in time-division multiplexing
(TDM) equipment to form higher capacity communication links.

In most countries, the central government has a regulator

dedicated to monitoring the provision of PSTN services
in that country. Their tasks may be for example to ensure that end customers are not over-charged for services
where monopolies may exist. They may also regulate the A Digital Signal 1 (DS1) circuit carries 24 DS0s on a
prices charged between the operators to carry each others North American or Japanese T-carrier (T1) line, or 32
trac.
DS0s (30 for calls plus two for framing and signaling) on
an E-carrier (E1) line used in most other countries. In
modern networks, the multiplexing function is moved as
close to the end user as possible, usually into cabinets at
4 Technology
the roadside in residential areas, or into large business
premises.

4.1

Network topology

These aggregated circuits are conveyed from the initial

multiplexer to the exchange over a set of equipment colMain article: PSTN network topology
lectively known as the access network. The access network and inter-exchange transport use synchronous optiThe PSTN network architecture had to evolve over the cal transmission, for example, SONET and Synchronous
years to support increasing numbers of subscribers, calls, Digital Hierarchy (SDH) technologies, although some
connections to other countries, direct dialing and so on. parts still use the older PDH technology.
The model developed by the United States and Canada
Within the access network, there are a number of referwas adopted by other nations, with adaptations for local
ence points dened. Most of these are of interest mainly
markets.
to ISDN but one the V reference point is of more
The original concept was that the telephone exchanges general interest. This is the reference point between a
are arranged into hierarchies, so that if a call cannot be primary multiplexer and an exchange. The protocols at
handled in a local cluster, it is passed to one higher up this reference point were standardized in ETSI areas as
for onward routing. This reduced the number of connect- the V5 interface.
ing trunks required between operators over long distances
and also kept local trac separate.

4.3 Impact on IP standards

However, in modern networks the cost of transmission

and equipment is lower and, although hierarchies still exVoice quality over PSTN networks was used as the benchist, they are much atter, with perhaps only two layers.
mark for the development of the Telecommunications
Industry Association's TIA-TSB-116 standard on voicequality recommendations for IP telephony, to determine
4.2 Digital channels
acceptable levels of audio delay and echo.[3]
Main article: Telephone exchange
As described above, most automated telephone exchanges now use digital switching rather than mechanical or analog switching. The trunks connecting the exchanges are also digital, called circuits or channels. However analog two-wire circuits are still used to connect the
last mile from the exchange to the telephone in the home
(also called the local loop). To carry a typical phone call
from a calling party to a called party, the analog audio
signal is digitized at an 8 kHz sample rate with 8-bit resolution using a special type of nonlinear pulse code modulation known as G.711. The call is then transmitted from
one end to another via telephone exchanges. The call is
switched using a call set up protocol (usually ISUP) between the telephone exchanges under an overall routing
strategy.
The call is carried over the PSTN using a 64 kbit/s channel, originally designed by Bell Labs. The name given

5 See also
Via Net Loss
Plain old telephone service (POTS)
Managed facilities-based voice network
Telecommunications Industry Association
Internet area network (IAN)
PSTN network topology

6 References
[1] Kushnick, Bruce (7 January 2013). What Are the Public Switched Telephone Networks, 'PSTN' and Why You

Should Care?". Hungton Post Blog. Retrieved 11 April

2014.
[2] Ditch Your PSTN and Take Your Fax Mobile. eFax. 21
January 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
[3] TIA TSB-116. Global.ihs.com. Retrieved 2011-11-20.

7 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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