elements during repairs or failures.

A make-busy would identify the part being worked on as in-use, causing the switching logic to route around it. A similar tool was called a TD tool. Subscribers who got behind in payments would have their service temporarily denied (TDed). This was effected by plugging a tool into the subscriber's office equipment (Crossbar) or line group (step). The subscriber could receive calls but could not dial out. Strowger-based, step-by-step offices in the Bell System were under continual maintenance. They required constant cleaning. Indicator lights on equipment bays in step offices alerted staff to conditions such as blown fuses (usually white lamps) or a permanent signal (stuck off-hook condition, usually green indicators.) Step offices were more susceptible to single-point failures than newer technologies. Crossbar offices used more shared, common control circuits. For example, a digit receiver (part of an element called an Originating Register) would be connected to a call just long enough to collect the subscriber's dialed digits. Crossbar architecture was more flexible than step offices. Later crossbar systems had punch-card-based trouble reporting systems. By the 1970s, automatic number identification had been retrofitted to nearly all stepby-step and crossbar switches in the Bell System.
[edit]Electronic switches

The first Electronic Switching Systems were not entirely digital. The Western Electric 1ESS switch had reed relay metallic paths which were stored-program-controlled. Equipment testing, changes to phone numbers, circuit lockouts and similar tasks were accomplished by typing on a terminal. Northern Telecom SP1, Ericsson AKE, Philips PRX/A, ITT Metaconta, British Telecom TXE series and several other designs were similar. These systems could use the old electromechanical signaling methods inherited from crossbar and step-bystep switches. They also introduced a new form of data communications: two 1ESS exchanges could communicate with one another using a data link called Common Channel Interoffice Signaling, (CCIS). This data link was based on CCITT 6, a predecessor to SS7.
[edit]Digital

switches

A typical satellite PBX with front cover removed.

Digital switches work by connecting two or more digital circuits together, according to a dialed telephone number. Calls are set up between switches using the Signalling System 7 protocol, or one of its variants. In U.S. and military telecommunication, a digital switch is a switch that performs time division switching of digitized signals.[13] This was first done in a few small and little used systems. The first product using a digital switch system was made by Amtelco. Prominent examples include ITT System 12, Nortel DMS-100, Lucent 5ESS switch, Siemens EWSD and Ericsson AXE telephone exchange. With few exceptions, such as PAM switches,[14] most switches built since the 1980s are digital. This article describes digital switches, including algorithms and equipment.

A digital exchange (Nortel DMS-100) used by an operator to offer local and long distance services in France. Each switch typically serves 10,000100,000+ subscribers depending on the geographic area

Digital switches encode the speech going on, in 8000 time slices per second. At each time slice, a digital PCM representation of the tone is made. The digits are then sent to the receiving end of the line, where the reverse process occurs, to produce the sound for the receiving phone. In other words, when someone uses a telephone, the speaker's voice is "encoded" then reconstructed for the person on the other end. The speaker's voice is delayed in the process by a small fraction of one second it is not "live", it is reconstructed delayed only minutely. (See below for more info.)

Individual local loop telephone lines are connected to a remote concentrator. In many cases, the concentrator is co-located in the same building as the switch. The interface between remote concentrators and telephone switches has been standardised by ETSIas the V5 protocol. Concentrators are used because most telephones are idle most of the day, hence the traffic from hundreds or thousands of them may be concentrated into only tens or hundreds of shared connections. Some telephone switches do not have concentrators directly connected to them, but rather are used to connect calls between other telephone switches. These complex machines (or a series of them) in a central exchange building are referred to as "carrier-level" switches or tandem switches. Some telephone exchange buildings in small towns now house only remote or satellite switches, and are homed upon a "parent" switch, usually several kilometres away. The remote switch is dependent on the parent switch for routing and number plan information. Unlike a digital loop carrier, a remote switch can route calls between local phones itself, without using trunks to the parent switch. Telephone switches are usually owned and operated by a telephone service provider or carrier and located in their premises, but sometimes individual businesses or private commercial buildings will house their own switch, called a PBX, or Private branch exchange.

Map of the Wire Center locations in the US

Map of the Central Office locations in the US

[edit]The

switch's place in the system

Telephone switches are a small part of a large network. The majority of work and expense of the phone system is the wiring outside the central office, or the outside plant. In the middle 20th century, each subscriber telephone number required an individual pair of wires from the switch to the subscriber's phone. A typical central office may have tens-of-thousands of pairs of wires that appear on terminal blocks called the main distribution frame or MDF. A component of the MDF is protection: fuses or other devices that protect the switch from lightning, shorts with electric power lines, or other foreign voltages. In a typical telephone company, a large database tracks information about each subscriber pair and the status of each jumper. Before computerization of Bell System records in the 1980s, this information was handwritten in pencil in accounting ledger books. To reduce the expense of outside plant, some companies use "pair gain" devices to provide telephone service to subscribers. These devices are used to provide service where existing copper facilities have been exhausted or by siting in a neighborhood, can reduce the length of copper pairs, enabling digital services such as ISDN or DSL. Pair gain or digital loop carriers (DLCs) are located outside the central office, usually in a large neighborhood distant from the CO. DLCs are often referred to as Subscriber Loop Carriers (SLCs), after a Lucent proprietary product. DLCs can be configured as universal (UDLCs) or integrated (IDLCs). Universal DLCs have two terminals, a central office terminal (COT) and a remote terminal (RT), that function similarly. Both terminals interface with analog signals, convert to digital signals, and transport to the other side where the reverse is performed.

Sometimes, the transport is handled by separate equipment. In an Integrated DLC, the COT is eliminated. Instead, the RT is connected digitally to equipment in the telephone switch. This reduces the total amount of equipment required. Switches are used in both local central offices and in long distance centers. There are two major types in the Public switched telephone network (PSTN):

1. Class 4 telephone switches designed for toll or switch-to-switch connections. 2. Class 5 telephone switches or subscriber switches, which manage connections from subscriber
telephones. Since the 1990s, hybrid Class 4/5 switching systems that serve both functions have become common. Another element of the telephone network is time and timing. Switching, transmission and billing equipment may be slaved to very high accuracy 10 MHz standards which synchronize time events to very close intervals. Time-standards equipment may include Rubidium- or Caesium-based standards and a Global Positioning System receiver.
[edit]Switch

design

Long distance switches may use a slower, more efficient switch-allocation algorithm than local central offices, because they have near 100% utilization of their input and output channels. Central offices have more than 90% of their channel capacity unused. Traditional telephone switches connected physical circuits (e.g., wire pairs) while modern telephone switches use a combination of space- and time-division switching. In other words, each voice channel is represented by a time slot (say 1 or 2) on a physical wire pair (A or B). In order to connect two voice channels (say A1 and B2) together, the telephone switch interchanges the information between A1 and B2. It switches both the time slot and physical connection. To do this, it exchanges data between the time slots and connections 8000 times per second, under control of digital logic that cycles through electronic lists of the current connections. Using both types of switching makes a modern switch far smaller than either a space or time switch could be by itself. The structure of a switch is an odd number of layers of smaller, simpler subswitches. Each layer is interconnected by a web of wires that goes from each subswitch, to a set of the next layer of subswitches. In most designs, a physical (space) switching layer alternates with a time switching layer. The layers are symmetric, because in a telephone system callers can also be callees. A time-division subswitch reads a complete cycle of time slots into a memory, and then writes it out in a different order, also under control of a cyclic computer memory. This causes some delay in the signal.

A space-division subswitch switches electrical paths, often using some variant of a nonblocking minimal spanning switch, or a crossover switch.
[edit]Switch [edit]Fully

control algorithms

connected mesh network

One way is to have enough switching fabric to assure that the pairwise allocation will always succeed by building a fully connected mesh network. This is the method usually used in central office switches, which have low utilization of their resources.
[edit]Clos's

nonblocking switch algorithm

Main article: Nonblocking minimal spanning switch The scarce resources in a telephone switch are the connections between layers of subswitches. The control logic has to allocate these connections, and most switches do so in a way that is fault tolerant. See nonblocking minimal spanning switch for a discussion of the Charles Clos algorithm, used in many telephone switches, and a very important algorithm to the telephone industry.
[edit]Fault

tolerance

Composite switches are inherently fault-tolerant. If a subswitch fails, the controlling computer can sense it during a periodic test. The computer marks all the connections to the subswitch as "in use". This prevents new calls, and does not interrupt old calls that remain working. As calls in progress end, the subswitch becomes unused, and new calls avoid the subswitch because it's already "in use." Some time later, a technician can replace the circuit board. When the next test succeeds, the connections to the repaired subsystem are marked "not in use," and the switch returns to full operation. To prevent frustration with unsensed failures, all the connections between layers in the switch are allocated using first-in-first-out lists (queues). As a result, if a connection is faulty or noisy and the customer hangs up and redials, they will get a different set of connections and subswitches. A last-in-first-out (stack) allocation of connections might cause a continuing string of very frustrating failures.
[edit]Internet

exchanges

The telephone exchange concept has been adapted for use in Internet exchanges. Voice over IP (VoIP) traffic may pass through both kinds of exchanges, depending on what kind of service the caller and the called subscriber are using.
[edit]See

also

History of telecommunication

List of telephone switches Pair gain system Full Availability, Limited Availability and Gradings Softswitch Stored Program Control exchange Strowger switch Telephone number DSLAM DSL ISDN PDH Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy PBX Private Branch Exchange or business-level switch Telephone exchange names First telephone exchange in UK - Faraday building

In US telecommunication jargon, a central office (C.O.) is a common carrier switching center Class 5 telephone switches in which trunks and local loops are terminated and switched.[15] Note: In the DOD, "common carrier" is called "commercial carrier." Synonyms exchange, local central office, local exchange, local office, switching center (except in DOD Defense Switched Network (formerly AUTOVON) usage), switching exchange, telephone exchange. Deprecated synonym switch.
[15]

[edit]Notes

1. 2. 3. 4.

^ Private Telegraphs, The Sydney Morning Herald, credited to The Times, April 19, 1878, p. 6. ^ http://www.hungarian-history.hu/mszh/epuskas.htm

^ "SZTNH". Mszh.hu. Retrieved 2012-07-01.

^ "Pusks, Tivadar". Omikk.bme.hu. Retrieved 2012-07-01.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
10.

^ "Welcome hunreal.com - BlueHost.com". Hunreal.com. Retrieved 2012-07-01.

^ Frank Lewis Dyer: Edison His Life And Inventions. (page: 71)

^ See National Park Service "first switchboard" page.

^ http://www.mosi.org.uk/media/33871608/early%20manchester%20telephone%20exchanges.pdf

^ "Siemens History Site - Information & Communications". Siemens.com. Retrieved 2012-07-01.

^ a b Calvert, J. B. (2003-09-07). "Basic Telephones". Retrieved 2007-09-13. ^ Calvert, J. B. (2003-09-07). "Basic Telephones, The Switchboard (ringdown is near bottom)". Retrieved 2006-09-13.

11.
12. digits.

^ a b Connected to a switch, an off-hook condition operates a relay to connect a dial tone and a device to collect dialed

13.

This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration document "Federal

Standard 1037C" (in support of MIL-STD-188).

14.
15.

^ (Ronayne 1986, p. 12).

^ a b Source: from Federal Standard 1037C.

Ronayne, John P. (1986). Introduction to Digital Communications Switching (1st edition ed.). Indianapolis: Howard W. Sams & Co., Inc. ISBN 0-672-22498-4.

[edit]External

links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Telephone exchanges

Hundreds of Telephone Central Office Pictures Telephone Central Office History and Pictures Telephone Central Office Building Pictures (historical preservation) History of Central Offices Clive Feather's guide to the BT network Basic Telephones Technology

Roger W. Haworth's guide to London (UK) Director Exchange Names National Park Service's page about the first telephone exchange patent 252,576 for the first telephone switchboard in 1881 A Telecom Exchange Tour in NZ Picture collection Telephon and Exchange

Alexander Graham Bell patented the first Telephone instrument capable of practical use in 1876. This method was used in the first commercial instrument developed by Bell in 1876. In 1878, the first telephone exchange was established at New Haven. In 1880, two Telephone Companies viz. The Oriental Telephone Company Ltd. and The Anglo-Indian Telephone Company Ltd. approached the Govt. of India for permission

to establish Telephone Exchanges in India. The permission was however refused on the grounds that the establishment of Telegraphs was a Government monopoly and that the Government itself would undertake the work in the event of sufficient demand. By 1881, Govt. of India changed their earlier decision and licence was granted to the original Oriental Telephone Company Limited of England for opening Telephone Exchanges at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Karachi and Ahmedabad. 28th January, 1882, is a Red Letter Day in the history of Telephone in India. On this day Major E. Baring, Member of the Governor General's Council declared open the Telephone Exchange in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. The exchange at Calcutta named "Central Exchange" was opened at third floor of the building at 7, Council House Street. On 30-06-1882, the Central Telephone Exchange had 93 number of subscribers.

A distant view of old Writers Building taken before the Dalhousie Institute was built within Dalhousie Square. The foundation of Dalhousie Institute was laid on 4th March 1865 On 1899, The Central Tele- phone Exchange wsa shifted to 1, Council House Street. The management of the Oriental Telephone Company was subsequently taken over by Bengal Telephone Company Limited. The telephone system in the city remained under management of Private Company till 1941 when all the shares of the Private company were purchased by a Public Enterprise. The capital expen- diture involved in this deal was Rs 117 lakhs only. From 1st April 1943, the control of the Telephone system in Calcutta,Madras and Bombay was taken over directly by the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Deptt. In 1985, Indian P & T was bifurcated and the control of Telephone has been transferred to Deptt. Of Telecom. On 01-10-2002, the telephone system of Calcutta came under Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) alongwith all other circles except the city of Delhi and Mumbay which are under Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL).

Dalhousie Institute Building - demolished on 1950 to make space for construction of Telephone Bhawan Calcutta Telephone District CTD) is the largest metro district of BSNL. Calcutta Telephones is having a service area of 1900 sq. k.m. covering the city of Kolkata and adjoining areas from five districts of West Bengal viz. Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas. At the time of Independence there were 20,000 phone connections in Kolkata. The figure rose to 5,00,000 by March 18, 1997 and crossed 1 million by February 27, 2000. CTD is the first metro network in the country to become fully electronic on 31-03-99 and is the first metro network in the country to become fully digital on 31-03-2000.

Operators at Hare Street Manual Exchange - 1935 Today on 31-03-2003, CTD is the most modern metro network of BSNL with about 13 lakh customers where telephone is available on demand, ISDN is available on demand and also leased circuit is available on demand. During the last two years a large number of new technologies, new services and new customer care facilities have been introduced. New Technologies and New Services New technologies which have been introduced are

STM rings Intelligent Network (IN) (first city to launch the service)

Local Network Managed System (first city to launch the technology) Microtunnelling (first city to launch the technology) Managed Leased Line Network (MLLN) Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) India Mobile Personal Communication Service (IMPCS) Centrex Answering Machine Service (AMS) Fibre to the Building in the form of RLU and DLC which has reduced the average copper loop length to less than 2 K.M. Direct Internet Access Service (DIAS) Voice over IP (VOIP) Account Less Internet Internet Telephony (Webfone) Sampark (IVRS based)

Customer Care Steps

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Home TECHNOLOGY History of Indian Telecommunication

History of Indian Telecommunication

by TT Desk on May 29, 2011 1:34 pm | TECHNOLOGY 38 Comments

India is the worlds fastest growing industry in the world in terms of number of wireless connections after China, with 811.59 million mobile phone subscribers. According to the world telecommunications industry, India will have 1.200 billion mobile subscribers by 2013. Furthermore, projections by several leading global consultancies indicate that the total number of subscribers in India will exceed the total subscriber count in the China by 2013. So how Telecommunication started in India?? Well Postal means of communication was the only mean communication until the year 1850. In 1850 experimental electric telegraph started for first time in India between Calcutta (Kolkata) and Diamond Harbor (southern suburbs of Kolkata, on the banks of the Hooghly River). In 1851, it was opened for the use of the British East India Company. Subsequently construction of telegraph started through out India. A separate department was opened to the public in 1854. Dr.William OShaughnessy, who pioneered the telegraph and telephone in India, belonged to the Public Works Department, and worked towards the development of telecom. Calcutta or the-then Kolkata was chosen as it was the capital of British India. In early1881, Oriental Telephone Company Limited of England opened telephone exchanges at Calcutta (Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai) and Ahmedabad. On the 28th January 1882 the first formal telephone service was established with a total of 93 subscribers. From the year 1902 India drastically changes from cable telegraph to wireless telegraph, radio telegraph, radio telephone, trunk dialing. Trunk dialing used in India for more than a decade, were system allowed subscribers to dial calls with operator assistance. Later moved to digital microwave, optical fiber, satellite earth station. During British period all major cities and towns in India were linked with telephones. So who was looking after Telecom?? In the year 1975 Department of Telecom (DoT) was responsible for telecom services in entire country after separation from Indian Post & Telecommunication. Decade later Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) was chipped out of DoT to run the telecom services of Delhi and Mumbai. In 1990s the telecom sector was opened up by the Government for private investment. In1995 TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) was setup. This reduced the interference of Government in deciding tariffs and policy making. The Government of India corporatized the operations wing of DoT in 2000 and renamed Department of Telecom as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). In last 10 years many private operators especially foreign investors successfully entered the high potential Indian telecom market. Globally acclaimed operators like Telenor, NTT Docomo, Vodafone, Sistema, SingTel, Maxis, Etisalat invested in India mobile operators.

Wireless Communication Pager Services Pager communication successful launched in India in the year 1995. Pagers were looked upon as devices that offered the much needed mobility in communication, especially for businesses. Motorola was a major player with nearly 80 per cent of the market share. The other companies included Mobilink, Pagelink, BPL, Usha Martin telecom and Easy call. Pagers were generally worn on the belt or carried in the pocket. The business peaked in 1998 with the subscriber base reaching nearly 2 million. However, the number dropped to less than 500,000 in 2002. The pager companies in India were soon struggling to maintain their business. While 2-way pagers could have buffered the fall, the pager companies were not in a position to upgrade their infrastructure to improve the ailing market. The Indian Paging Services Association was unable to support the industry. Pager companies in India also offered their services in regional languages also. However, the end had begun already. By 2002, Motorola stops making or servicing pagers. When mobile phones were commercially launched in India, the pager had many advantages to boast. Pagers were smaller, had a longer battery life and were considerably cheaper. However, the mobile phones got better with time and continuously upgraded themselves. Mobile Communication First mobile telephone service on non-commercial basis started in India on 48th Independence Day at countrys capital Delhi. The first cellular call was made in India on July 31st, 1995 over Modi Telstras MobileNet GSM network of Kolkata. Later mobile telephone services are divided into multiple zones known as circles. Competition has caused prices to drop and calls across India are one of the cheapest in the world. Most of operator follows GSM mobile system operate under 900MHz bandwidth few recent players started operating under 1800MHz bandwidth. CDMA operators operate under 800Mhz band, they are first to introduce EVDO based high speed wireless data services via USB dongle. In spite of this huge growth Indian telecom sector is hit by severe spectrum crunch, corruption by India Govt. officials and financial troubles. In 2008, India entered the 3G arena with the launch of 3G enabled Mobile and Data services by Government owned MTNL and BSNL. Later from November 2010 private operators started to launch their services. Broadband communication After US, Japan, India stands in third largest Internet users of which 40% of Internet used via mobile phones. India ranks one of the lowest provider of broadband speed as compared countries such as Japan, India and Norway. Minimum broadband speed of 256kbit/s but speed above 2Mbits is still in a nascent stage. Year 2007 had been declared as Year of Broadband in India. Telcos based on ADSL/VDSL in India generally have speeds up to 24Mbit max while those based on newer Optical Fiber technology offer up to 100Mbits in some plans Fiberoptic communication (FTTx). Broadband growth has been plagued by many problems. Complicated tariff structure, metered billing, High charges for right of way, Lack of domestic content, non implementation of Local-loop unbundling have all resulted in hindrance to the growth of broadband. Many experts think future of broadband is on the hands of wireless factor. BWA auction winners are expected to roll out LTE and WiMAX in India in 2012. Next Generation Network (NGN)

Next Generation Networks, multiple access networks can connect customers to a core network based on IP technology. These access networks include fiber optics or coaxial cable networks connected to fixed locations or customers connected through Wi-Fi as well as to 3G networks connected to mobile users. As a result, in the future, it would be impossible to identify whether the next generation network is a fixed or mobile network and the wireless access broadband would be used both for fixed and mobile services. It would then be futile to differentiate between fixed and mobile networks both fixed and mobile users will access services through a single core network. Cloud based data services are expected to come. Indian Satellites India has launched more than 50 satellites of various types, since its first attempt in 1975. The organization responsible for Indian satellites is the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Most Satellites have been launched from various vehicles, including American, Russian, European satellite-launch rockets, and the U.S. Space Shuttle. First Indian satellite Aryabhata on 19th April 1975, later Bhaskara, Rohini, INSAT, Edusat, IRS, GSAT, Kalpana, Cartosat, IMS, Chandrayaan, ResourceSat, RiSat, AnuSat, etc. Well guys this is how telecom Industry is growing in India, hope to see India far ahead of other countries in near future. About the author:

Amruth.H.R is a Engineer by profession a cellphone freak and a developer.