COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS ENGINEERING (3 UNITS)

COURSE OUTLINE

◊ Various Methods of Carrying Information

◊ Telephony, Facsimile and Data Communications

◊ Review of Types of Exchanges

◊ Principle of Stored Program Control (SPC)

◊ Space and Time Division Switching

◊ Multiplexing

◊ Packet Switching

◊ Transmission: Data transmission, Design of Long Distance Links and Networks Using Coaxial
cable, Optical Fibres and Microwave Radio system.

◊ Planning: Policies, Traffic Estimation, Forecasting of Development

◊ Reliability in Planning

◊ National and International Transmission Plans.

TEXTBOOK

 Fundamentals of Telecommunications by Roger L. Freeman, 2nd Edition, 2005

 Telecommunication System Engineering by Roger L. Freeman, 4th Edition, 2004

Further References and Recommended Readings:

○ The Irwin Handbook of Telecommunications by James H. Green, 5th Edition

○ Telecommunications Essentials: The Complete Global Source by Lillian Goleniewski and Kitty
Wilson Jarret, 2nd Edition, 2006

USEFUL WEB RESOURCES

○ MainOne Submarine Cable System

https://www.mainone.net/our-network/cable-system/
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS/DEFINITION OF TERMS

ATM: Asynchronous Transfer Mode

CCS: Common-channel signaling

CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access

CPE: Customer Premises Equipment

CO: Central Office

DSL: Digital Subscriber Line

FCC: Federal Communications Commission

FDM: Frequency Division Multiplexing

FDMA: Frequency Division Multiple Access

FTTC: Fibre-to-the-curb

FTTH: Fibre-to-the-home

FTTN: Fiber-to-the-neighborhood

IDP: Inter-digit pause

LAN: Local Area Network

OC: Optical Carrier

PCS: Personal Communication Service

PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network

SCADA: supervisory control and data acquisition.

SCP: Service control point

STP: Signal Transfer point

SSP: Service Switching point

SS7: Signaling System No. 7

SONET: Synchronous Optical Network

TDM: Time Division Multiplexing

UTP: Unshielded Twisted Pair

WAN: Wide Area Network

Line is a link that supports information transfer for one terminal, e.g, the twisted pair that connects a
single telephone to the central office
Trunk is a link that supports information transfer for multiple terminal simultaneously, e.g, an
interconnect between two switching nodes

Transmission medium is the physical space through which the signal propagates.

Backbone is a transmission channel between network switching nodes

Switching Equipment are equipment with input and output ports that transmits traffic and sets up paths
to destinations based on digits dialed or addressing bits.

Quality of Service (QoS):

Transmission media (medium, singular) is used to describe what is transporting telecommunication

signals

Node is a point or junction in a transmission system where lines and trunks meet

Signaling may be defined as the exchange of information specifically concerned with the establishment
and control of connections, along with the transfer of user-to-user and management information in a
circuit-switched (e.g., the PSTN) network.

CCITT- stand for International Consultative Committee for Telephone and Telegraph; the second was
the CCIR, standing for International Consultative Committee for Radio. After the reorganization, the
CCITT became the Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the ITU, and the CCIR became the
ITU Radiocommunication Sector. The former produces ITU-T Recommendations and the latter
produces ITU-R Recommendations. The ITU Radiocommunications Sector essentially prepares the
Radio Regulations for the General Secretariat
 COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

1.0 BASIC CONCEPTS OF COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS AND BRIEF INTRODUCTION

TO THE COURSE

• What is Telecommunications?
The word “telecommunications” has its roots in Greek with

Tele – “over a distance”

Communicara – “ability to share”.

Literally, telecommunication means the “ability to share information over a distance”.

Telecommunication encompasses the electrical communication of voice, data, and image
information at a distance.

Over decades, telecommunications has grown into a multi-trillion dollar industry that
increasingly affects most aspects of human life while also forming integral part of human life,
work, study, entertainment, health, defence, sport/fitness, games that mimic dislike stuffs

Communication is the process of transferring information from the sender to the receiver
through succession of processes with hierarchy by a means of a communication channel/link in a
cost effective manner. The information is carried in form of a signal, which represents physical
quantity that varies with time.

o Various Methods of Carrying Information?

 Classification based on type of signal
 Classification based of mode of transmission
 Classification based on information flow
 Classification based on type of information
 Classification based on type of medium
o What is Information?
Information can be described as communication signals which are variation of voltages or
currents or light levels over time and distance.

o Different forms of Communication signal

 Analog signal
 Digital signal

For analog signals, these variations are directly proportional to some physical variable like
sound, light, etc

For digital signal, e.g binary form – the signal will have only two values, a digital one and a
digital zero.

Another form of signal is random signal. These are signals that are unpredictable and can be
described only by statistical means. A typical example is Noise which is described by its mean
power and frequency distribution.
 o How to convert information from analog to digital form
 Pulse code modulation (PCM)
- Sampling
- Quantizing
- Encoding
o Information Measurement
The information carried by a signal can be expressed in bits and it is proportional to the
logarithm of the inverse of the probability of the occurrence of the corresponding event.

I  log 2  1 
 Pe 
The amount of information transmitted in one second is the capacity of the channel, expressed
in bit/s.

o Channel Capacity
The capacity of a communication channel is proportional to the bandwidth and the logarithm of
the signal to noise (S/N) ratio, i.e.
C  B log 2 1   S /  NB  
C is the capacity (maximum throughput), bits/sec
B is the Bandwidth, Hz
S is the received signal power, W
N is the noise power density, W/Hz
 Features of Communications Network
o There must be source and sink of information  demand
o The communications network is hierarchical  switching
o There must be a transmission link  capacity of exchange
o Cost implication is crucial  traffic estimation
o Communication engineering capacity to meet demand  Traffic theory
o Communication engineering links to meet capacity requirements  channel capacity
o Communications network must be secured with good Quality of Service
o Communication network must have provision for expansion  Forecasting of
development

o Traditionally, communications system can also be subdivided according

to the type of information which include
▪ Voice – The telephone network

▪ Video – The broadcast television network

▪ Data (Machine-to-machine communication) – Various network/services that have

merged/evolved into the internet.

o Communications can also be classified according to the transmission media which include
 ▪ Twisted-Wire pair
▪ Coaxial cable
▪ Fibre optics
▪ Radio link/Microwave link/Satellite communications

Node A Node B
Communication link

Figure 1.1: A typical communication link between two nodes

▪ In a typical telephone system, capacity is the number of simultaneous telephone

calls that can be supported or aggregate calls that can be supported over a period of time

▪ Demand is the simultaneous telephone calls attempted by users or typical

aggregate requested.

o Communications system can also be classified based on information

flow
 Simplex
Simplex is one-way transmission only, e.g. TV broadcasting
 Half-duplex
Half-duplex is transmission mode where the corresponding stations have to take turns to
access the medium/channel/link, e.g. walkie-talkie - It requires a form of hand-shaking to
coordinate access. This technique is called time division duplexing (TDD).
 Full-duplex
Full-duplex transmission is a transmission mode where the two corresponding stations
can transmit simultaneously, employing different frequencies. This technique is called
frequency division duplexing (FDD). A guard band is usually required between the two
frequencies in use.
 One may be wondering how you can conduct a two-way conversation on your telephone, which
is connected to a two-wire local loop. The answer is that the telephone set itself is a full-duplex
device, containing a circuit called the network interface or telephony hybrid, which connects
the microphone and speaker to the telephone line and performs the conversion between the
two-wire transmission link and the four-wire telephone set, separating the incoming audio from
the outgoing signal.
o Communications system can also be classified based on the mode to
transmission
 Asynchronous Transmission: asynchronous transmission is when one character is
transmitted at a time, at a variable speed (i.e., speed depending on things such as how
quickly you type or whether you stop to answer the phone).
 Synchronous Transmission: Synchronous transmission in classic data communications implied
sending information a block at a time at a fixed speed

• Switching and Technology

If there were no switching machines, each phone would have to be directly connected to all
others. What are the implications?

Signaling is the use of signals for controlling communications for the purpose of setting-up,
supervising and terminating (tear down) calls, connections or communication sessions.

• Traffic Consideration
Traffic theory provides the necessary tools that enable us to study telecommunications
engineering. It allows the estimate of how much capacity is required (between two given nodes
in a network) given a desired quality of service (QoS). QoS can be defined as the probability
that a telephone call is blocked, e.g. due to lack of available capacity.

• Current Trends in Communications

○ Convergence of Television, Telephone, Internet to single network e.g. smart 3D TVs

○ Convergence of devices e.g. television, computer, Apple watch (wrist watch,

accelerometer, gyroscope, heart rate sensor (Electrocardiogram)

○ Convergence of applications e.g. Edutainment

○ Convergence of Humans and machines e.g. robots

○ Emergence of virtual reality and wearables computers/technology: the human-computer

interface will become increasingly seamless.

○ Cloud computing

• Future Trends in Communications

○ Expansion of Telecommunications to rural areas

○ Emergence of more smart appliances

○ Evolving towards a single worldwide network(s) that supports all types of information
transfer (the massive bandwidth capacity of optical fibre makes it possible for a single
network to support all types of information services – broadband, narrowband, real time,
etc – simultaneously).