3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks

SIGNALLING
In a telecommunication network, signalling systems are as essential as switching systems and transmission systems. They must be compatible with the switching systems as they must be able to transmit all the signals required to operate the switches. They must also be compatible with the transmission system in order to reach the exchange that they control. Thus, design of signalling systems is directly influenced by both switching and transmission requirements. Exchanges usually send signals over the same circuits in the network as the connections which they control. This is known as channel associated signaling. In SPC, the need for more signals to be transmitted between exchanges arise. These signals are transmitted between two processors of two different exchanges over a separate data channel. This is known as common channel signalling (CCS). Signaling can be classified as follows:

Signalling

Inchannel

Common channel

DC

Low frequency

Voice frequency

PCM

Associated

Non-associated

Inband

Outband

Fig. Signalling techniques Inchannel versus common channel signalling: INCHANNEL

1. 2. 3. Trunks are held up during signaling Signal repertoire is limited Interference between voice and control signals may occur Separate signaling equipment is required for each trunk and hence is expensive.

COMMON CHANNEL
Trunks are not required for signalling. Extensive signalling repertoire is possible No interference as the two channels are physically separated. Only one set of signalling equipment is required for a whole group of trunk circuits, therefore is inexpensive. Signalling is significantly fast.

4.

Signaling is relatively slow 5. Speech circuit reliability is assured. There is no automatic test of the speech circuit. There is flexibility to change or add signals.
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6. 7. 8. Reliability of signaling path is not critical. Possibility of misuse by customers. 9. 10. It is difficult to change or add signals. It is difficult to handle signaling during speech period. Reliability of signalling path is critical. Control channel is generally inaccessible to customers. Signals can be handled anytime.

Customer line signalling:

In a local telephone network, loop/disconnect signaling is used for sending customers call and clear signals to the exchange. Due to maximum permissible line resistance (because of minimum line current), there is a limit on the maximum length of the line and area served by the exchange. When dial telephones are used, customers send address information by decadic pulsing which is received by a relay circuit. However push-button telephones use DTMF revolutionized customer line signaling.

FDM carrier systems:

Outband signalling:
In Frequency Division Multiplex (FDM) systems, the carriers are placed at intervals of 4kHz and the baseband is from 300Hz to 3.4kHz. by using channel filters with a sharp cut-off, it is possible to insert a narrow-band signalling channel above the speech band (3.4kHz to 4kHz). This is known as outband signalling .

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A DC signal on the input lead M at one terminal causes the signal frequency to be sent over the transmission channel. This is detected on the other terminal to give a corresponding DC signal on the output lead E. If the repeater station containing the FDM channeling equipment is adjacent to the switching equipment, it is simpler for the latter to send and receive signals over separate E and M wires than to extract them from and re-insert them into the speech circuit. The E lead always carries signal from the signaling apparatus to the switching equipment and the M lead carries signals from the switching equipment to the signalling apparatus. To use outband signalling successfully in a network, all routes must use FDM systems with built-in outband signalling.

Inband (VF) signalling:

Signals that are placed in the outband region need all routes to be equipped with proper outband signalling FDM systems. This problem is solved if the signals transmitted are placed in the baseband of FDM systems. This is known as inband signalling and this will function over any circuit which provides satisfactory speech transmission. A voice frequency signaling system is shown in the figure below.

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Outgoing signal terminal

VF receiver fs ~ Forward Buffer amplifier

Incoming signal terminal

Switching equipmen t

Transmit line split Buffer amplifier

Four wire circuit

Receive line split

Switching equipmen t

Backward Receive line split VF receiver ~ fs

Transmit line split

Fig. Voice frequency(VF) signalling system The line is split when the signal tone is transmitted in order to confine it to the link concerned. Consequently, the tone spills over before the receiver has operated but this spill-over is ignored because its duration is less than the length of the signals used. The unity gain buffer amplifier at the receiving end prevents transients produced by electro-mechanical switching equipment from reaching the VF receiver. Since the voice frequency signals are used, there occurs a possibility of signal imitation which is undesirable. The following measures are taken to avoid this: A signal frequency is chosen at which the energy in speech is low (i.e. above 2khz). The durations of signals are made longer than the period for which the speech frequency is likely to persist in speech. Use is made of the fact that the signal frequency is unlikely to be produced in speech without other frequencies also being present. In order to make use of the last measure, the receiver contains a signal circuit with a band pass filter to accept the signal frequency and a guard circuit with a band stop filter to accept all other frequencies and reject the signal frequency. The outputs of both circuits are rectified and compared. If the output from the signal circuit exceeds that from the guard circuit, the receiver operates and gives an output signal, and vice-versa.

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PCM signalling:
In this, the DC signals associated with the audio frequency baseband circuits in each direction are sampled and the signal samples are transmitted within the frame of PCM channels. It is therefore unnecessary to use VF signalling.

The 2Mbits system has 32 8bit time slots, but it provides only 30 channels. Time slot 0 is used for frame alignment and time slot 16 is used for signaling, as shown above. The 8bits of channel 16 are shared between the 30 channels by a process of multi-framing. 16 successive appearances of channel 16 form a multi-frame of 8bit time slots. The first contains a multi-frame alignment signal and each of the subsequent 15 time slots contain 4 bits for each of the two channels. This enables a large number of signals to be exchanged than is possible with the DC signaling methods. When PCM signaling is used for common channel signaling, then multi-framing is not needed.

Inter-register signalling:
For register-controlled exchanges, a register in the originating exchange receives address information from the calling customer and sends out routing digits. This goes on till the terminating
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3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks exchange is reached. This introduces post-dialing delay which is minimized using inband multi-frequency signaling systems. This enables an operator to send address information over a junction to an automatic exchange more rapidly than by dialing. In inter-register signaling systems, the signal initiates a connection to a register. The register is released after it has set up a connection through its exchange and sent out routing digits, therefore it cannot receive answer and clear signals. Consequently line signaling is required in addition to interregister signaling. Either en-bloc or overlap signalling may be used. In en-bloc signaling the complete address information is transferred from one register to the next as a single string of digits. Thus no signal is sent until the complete address information has been received. In overlap signaling, digits are sent out as soon as possible enabling signaling to take place simultaneously on two links. Also link by link or end to end signaling may be employed. In link by link signaling, information is exchanged only between adjacent registers in a multi-link connection. In end to end signaling, the originating register controls the setting up of a connection until it reaches its final destination.

Fig. Link-by-link and End-to-end signalling between registers

Common channel signalling:

In common channel signaling, there is a separate data link between the two processors in two different exchanges. All signals between these two exchanges are transmitted via this data link. It gives the following advantages: Information can be exchanged between the processors much more rapidly than when channelassociated signaling is used. As a result, a much wider repertoire of signals can be used and this enables more services to be provided to the customers. Signals can be added or changed by software modification to provide new services. There is no longer any need for line signaling equipment on every junction which results in a considerable cost saving.
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3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks Since there is no line-signalling, the junctions can be used for calls from B to A in addition to calls from A to B. Signals relating to a call could be sent while the call is in progress. Signals between two processors can be exchanged for functions other than call processing, for example for maintenance or network management purposes. For a common channel signal, the reliability needs to be much greater than channel-associated signalling because failure of data link could prevent any calls to be made between the two exchanges. CCS does not provide an inherently checking facility. Therefore a separate means of checking the functioning of speech circuits must be employed.
Exchange A
Switching network Junction Forward signals

Exchange B
Switching network

Processor

Backward signals

Processor

Fig. Channel associated signalling between central processors Exchange A

Junction

Exchange B

Switching network

Switching network

Processor Signalling link

Processor

Fig. Common channel signalling between central processors

In multi-exchange network there will be many CCS links between exchanges and they form a signalling network. In principle, CCS networks can pass through different routes from the connections which they control and they can pass through several intermediate nodes in the signaling network. This is called non-associated signalling. here the messages must include labels containing their destinations.

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In practice, CCS messages are usually only routed through one intermediate node. This is known as quasi-associated signalling. The intermediate node is called signal transfer point (STP). Since CCS signals may be routed via an STP, each message contains a destination point code and also an originating point code. The transmission bearers used for a CCS network are channels in the main transmission bearer network.

CCITT signalling system no.7

This was the first CCS system to be standardized internationally. This was used in analog networks and it used bit rates of 2.4kbits/s and 4.8kbits/s. it used modems to transmit over analog telephone channels. It used fixed size signal units of 28bits. A later version for use in digital networks added four padding bits to be compatible with 8bit PCM time slots. However this has now been replaced by the CCITT signalling system no.7.

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High-level data-link control protocol (HDLC):

Flag Address Control Information Check Flag

1 octet

1 or 2 octets 1 octet

variable

2 octets

1 octet

fig. Frame structure for high-level data-link control (HDLC) protocol

The level 2 protocol used in the CCITT no.7 signalling uses the international standard known as high level data-link control (HDLC). Messages are sent by packets contained within frames having the format shown above. The beginning and end of each HDLC message is indicated by a unique combination of digits(01111110) known as a flag. These sequence of digits can occur in the message also and must not be interpreted as a flag. This is done by 0 bit insertion and deletion which is also called stuffing and unstuffing respectively. When sending digits of a message between two flags, the sending terminal inserts a 0 after every sequence of five consecutive 1s. the receiving terminal deletes this 0. The opening flag is followed by bit fields for address and control information followed by the data field containing the message information. Between the data and the closing fields, there is an errorcheck field, which enables the receiving system to detect if the frame is erroneous and request retransmission. Signal messages are passed from the central processor of the sending exchange to the CCS system. This consists of 3 micro-processor based sub-systems: 1. signalling control subsystem 2. signalling transmission subsystem 3. error control subsystem The signalling control subsystem structures the messages in the appropriate format and queues them for transmission. Messages are then passed to the signalling termination subsystem, where complete signal units (SU) are assembled using sequence numbers and check bits generated by the error control subsystem. At the receiving terminal, the reverse sequence is carried out. The system can be modeled as a stock of protocols: 1. Level 1: The physical level It is the means of sending bit-streams over a physical path. It uses time slot 16 of a 2Mbit/s PCM system or time slot 24 of a 1.5Mbit/s system. Level 2: Data-link level: It performs the function of error control, link initialization, error-rate monitoring, flow control and de-lineation of messages.
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2.

3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks 3. Level 3: Signalling network level: It provides functions required for a signaling network. Each node in the network has a signal point code which is a 14 bit address. Every message contains the point code of the originating and terminating nodes for that message. 4. Level 4: User level: This must be fully compatible with the level 3 of the model.

Signal units:
Information that has to be sent in structures into a signal unit (SU) by the signalling control unit. The SU is based on the HDLC protocol. SUs are of 3 types: 1) The message signal unit (MSU): This transfers information supplied by a user port (level 4) via the signaling network level (level 3). 2) The link-status signal unit(LSSO): This is used for link initialization and error control 3) The fill-in signal unit(FISU): This is sent to maintain alignment when there is no signal traffic. The format of MSU is shown below: Flag 8 BSN 7 BIB 1 7 FSN 1 FIB 6 LI 2 Spare 8 SIO 8n SIF 16 8 Check Flag

fig. Message signalling unit

Flag 8

BSN 7 1

BIB 7

FSN 1

FIB 6

LI 2

Spare 8 or16

SF 16

Check 8

Flag

fig. Link status signalling unit

Flag 8

BSN 7 1

BIB 7

FSN 1

FIB 6

LI 2

Spare 16

Check 8

Flag

fig. Fill-in unit SF: status field SIF: signaling information field BIB: backward indicator bit BSN: backward sequence number
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3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks SIO: service information octet LI: length indicator FIB: forward indicator bit FSN: forward sequence number

Fig. Format of signal units in CCITT no.7 signalling system

Messages are of variable length and are sent in 8-bytes as follows: 1) Opening and closing flags are used to delimit signals. They have the code pattern 01111110. 2) The forward indicator bit (FIB), backward indicator bit (BIB), forward sequence number (FSN) and backward sequence number (BSN) are used for error correction. 3) The length indicator (LI) gives the length of the SU. Value of LI greater than 2 indicates that the SU is a message signal unit. 4) The service information octet (SIO) indicates the user port appropriate to the message. 5) The signalling information field (SIF) may consist of upto 272 octets and contains the information to be transmitted. 6) The error-check field is immediately before the closing flag. It contains 16 bits generated as a cyclic redundancy check code.

Traffic. In telecommunication system, traffic is defined as the occupancy of the server in the network. There are two types of traffic viz. voice traffic and data traffic. For voice traffic, the calling rate is defined as the number of calls per traffic path during the busy hour. In a day, the 60 minutes interval in which the traffic is highest is called busy hour (BH).

Grade of Service. In telephone field, the so called busy hour traffic are used for planning purposes. Once the statistical properties of the traffic are known, the objective for the performance of a switching system should be stated. This is done by specifying a grade of service (GOS). GOS is a measure of congestion expressed as the probability that a call will be blocked or delayed. Thus when dealing with GOS in traffic engineering, the clear understanding of blocking criteria, delay criteria and congestion are essential.

Blocking criteria.

If the design of a system is based on the fraction of calls blocked (the blocking probaility), then the system is said to be engineered on a blocking basis or call loss basis. Blocking can occur if all devices are occupied when a demand of service is initiated. Blocking criteria are often used for the dimensioning

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3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks of switching networks and interoffice trunk groups. For a system designed on a loss basis, a suitable GOS is the percentage of calls which are lost because no equipment is available at the instant of call request.

Delay criteria.

If the design of a system is based on the fraction of calls delayed longer than a specified length of time (the delay probability), the system is said to be a waiting system or engineered on a delay basis. Delay criteria are used in telephone systems for the dimensioning of registers. In waiting system, a GOS objective could be either the percentage of calls which are delayed or the percentage which are delayed more than a certain length of time.

Congestion. It is the condition in a switching center when a subscriber can not obtain a connection to the wanted subscriber immediately. In a circuit switching system, there will be a period of congestion during which no new calls can be accepted. There are two ways of specifying congestion.

1. Time congestion. It is the probability that all servers are busy. It is also called the probability of blocking.

2. Call congestion. It is the proportion of calls arising that do not find a free server. Call congestion is a loss system and also known as the probability of loss while in a delay system it is referred to as the probability of waiting. If the number of sources is equal to the number of servers, the time congestion is finite, but the call congestion is zero. When the number of sources is large in comparison with servers, the probability of a new call arising is independent of the number already in progress and therefore the call congestion is equal to the time congestion. In general, time and call congestions are different but in most practial cases, the discrepancies are small.

3.Measure of GOS. GOS is expressed as a probability. The GOS of 2% (0.02) mean that 98% of the calls will reach a called instrument if it is free. Generally, GOS is quoted as P.02 or simply P02 to represent a network busy probability of 0.02. GOS is applied to a terminal-toterminal connection. For the system connection many switching centers, the system is generally broken into following components.

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3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks (i) an internal call (calling subscriber to switching office) (ii) an outgoing call to the trunk network (switching office to trunk) (iii) The trunk network (trunk to trunk) (iv) A terminating call (switching office to called subscriber)

The GOS of each component is called component GOS. The GOS for internal calls is 3 to 5%, for trunk calls 1-3%, for outgoing calls 2% and for terminating calls 2%. The overall GOS of a system is approximately the sum of the component grade of service. In practice, in order to ensure that the GOS does not deteriorate disastrously if the actual busy hour traffic exceeds the mean, GOS are specified 10% or 20% more of the mean.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS TRAFFIC
In case of telecommunication systems, it is required to design the system in accordance with the number of calls that are in progress at any point of time and the total number of subscribers that are connected to the network. Teletraffic engineering involves the design of the number of switching equipment required and the number of transmission lines required for carrying telephone calls. In teletraffic engineering the term trunk is used to describe any entity that will carry one call. The arrangement of trunks and switches within an exchange is called its trunking. We can check the number of calls in progress at different intervals of time for a whole day and then tabulate the results. If a graph is plotted taking the number of calls in progress on y-axis and the time of the day on x-axis the graph would look like this:-

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fig 1.

The maximum number of calls occurs between 8:00 and 10:00 am for this particular exchange. This hour which corresponds to the peak traffic of the exchange is called the busy hour. The busy hour varies for different exchanges and the teletraffic curve also varies for different exchanges from what is shown in the fig 1. Exchanges in which offices and business establishments predominate usually have a busy hour between 10:00 and 11:00 am. Residential exchanges have a busy hour normally between 4:00 and 5:00 pm.

The limit of traffic: The teletraffic intensity or simply the traffic is defined as the average no. of calls in progress. The unit of traffic is erlang (named after the Danish pioneer in teletraffic A.K.Erlang).It is a dimensionless quantity. On a group of trunks, the average number of calls in progress depends on both the no. of calls which arrive and their duration. The duration of a call is called its holding time because it holds the trunk for that time. Consider a holding time T for a group of 3 trunks:
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a) >.. b)

2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

c)

Fig. 2 Example of 1 erlang of traffic carried on 3 trunks

Figure 2(a) shows 1 erlang of traffic resulting from one truck being busy for the holding time T. Figure 2(b) shows 1 erlang of traffic resulting from two trunks with each trunk being busy for 50% of the time T. Figure 2(c) shows 1 erlang of traffic being carried by three trunks with each of the trunks being busy for 33.33% of the time T. Sometimes the traffic is also expressed in terms of hundreds of call seconds per hour ( CCS).

1 erlang = 36 CCS

Mathematically traffic can be represented by the following equation:

A=Ch/T
where A=traffic in erlangs

(1)

C=average number of calls during time T

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3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks h=average holding time

From eqn 1, if T=h, A=C. Thus traffic in erlangs can be defined as mean number of calls arriving during a period equal to the mean duration of the calls (average holding time). A single trunk cannot carry more than one call, therefore A<=1 for a single trunk. This is called the occupancy of the trunk. The occupancy of the trunk is also the probability of finding the trunk busy.

Congestion: Normally in a telecommunication system, the installed equipment will be enough to carry the busy hour traffic and not the entire traffic that can be generated by the subscribers since the probability of every subscriber making a call simultaneously is negligible. In such a design a situation might arise where all the trunks of the system are busy. The system will not be able to accept any further calls. This state is known as congestion. There are two things that could happen to a call that encounters congestion depending upon the design of the exchange: 1) The call will be unsuccessful i.e. lost. Such a system is called a lost call system. 2) The call will wait in a queue until a trunk frees up. Such calls are delayed and not lost. Such systems are called delayed systems or queued systems. GOS-Grade of Service (B): The proportion of calls lost or delayed due to congestion is a measure of the service provided.For a lost call system the grade of service is given by,

B= number of calls lost

traffic lost
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number of calls offered

traffic offered

The traffic carried by a lost call system will always be less than the traffic offered.

Traffic offered = A erlangs Traffic lost Traffic carried = AB erlangs = A(1-B) erlangs (2)

Note: Larger the Grade of service worse is the service given. Ideally B=0.

Traffic measurement: It is essential to keep a record of the traffic that is offered to a telephone exchange in order to upgrade the system capacity as and when required. Initially the number of calls used to be measured manually. Later automatic traffic recorders were installed in automatic exchanges. In modern SPC systems, a separate sub-program keeps count of the traffic generated.

Mathematical model: A mathematical model needs to be developed in order to study telecommunications traffic. Such a model is based on two assumptions: a) pure chance traffic b) statistical equilibrium

a) The assumption of pure chance traffic means that call arrivals and call terminations are independent random events. It also implies that the
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number of sources generating calls is very large. Since call arrivals are independent random events, the occurrence of calls is not affected by previous calls, therefore traffic is sometimes called memoryless traffic. The number of call arrivals in a given time T has a poissonian distribution given by, P(n) = x/x!.e-
where x is the number arrivals in time T is the mean number of call arrivals in time T

(3)

i.

The intervals between calls arrivals are intervals between independent random events and these intervals have a negative exponential distribution, (4) P(x>=t) = e -t/
where is the mean interval between call arrivals

ii.

The call durations, T are intervals between independent random events (call termination). Therefore the call durations also have a negative exponential distribution. P(T>=t) = e-t/h (5)
where h is the average holding time

b) Statistical equilibrium means that the generation of traffic is a stationary random process i.e. the probabilities do not change for the period being considered. Consequently the mean number of calls in progress remains constant.

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The state transition diagram is shown for a group of N trunks. The total number of states that N trunks can have is N+1. The number of calls in progress varies randomly and lies between 0 and N. the state transition diagram shown is called a simple Markov chain. The probabilities P(0), P(1), . are called the state probabilities and the P j,k , P k,i are called transition probabilities of the Markov chain. In case of statistical equilibrium these probabilities will have a fixed value and they will not change. Using Markov chains we can proceed to prove that if call arrivals has a Poissonian distribution, then the calls in progress will also have a Poissonian distribution:

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