PDH is Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy and SDH is Synchronous Digital Hierarchy.

Both are used in PCM transmission systems. Both use TDM principles for PCM frames.
Earlier PDH was widely used but due to some of its weaknesses, SDH has replaced the
use of PDH. But not everywhere. Point to Point applications are still used mainly
by PDH, and also, it�s cheaper. The term plesiochronous has been derived from the
Greek work �plesio� that means �near� and �chronos� meaning time. This means that
the PDH works in a state when the various different parts of a network are clearly
synchronized. But with the change in technology, the PDH is now being replaced by
the SDH or what is popularly called as synchronous digital hierarchy. The SDH is
useful equipment that is used in most of the telecommunications networks. This PDH
helps in proper transmission of the data that generally runs at the similar rate
but allows some slight variation in the speed than the nominal rate. The basic
transfer rate of the data is 2048 kilobits per second. For instance, in each speech
transmission, the normal rate breaks into different thirty channels of 64 kilobits
per second along with two different 64 kilobits per second in order to perform the
tasks of synchronization and signaling. The typical rate of transmitting the data
over the fiber optic systems is 565 Mbit/sec in order to transport the data in the
long distance. But as the technology has improved with the passing of time, now the
telecommunication companies have replaced the PDH equipment with that of the SDH
equipment, which has the capability of transmitting the data at much higher rates
as compared to the PDH system. The SDH is an international standard that is highly
popular and used for its high speed data transfer of the telecommunication and
digital signals. This synchronous system has been specially designed in order to
provide a simple and flexible network infrastructure. This system has brought a
considerable amount of change in the telecommunication networks that were based on
the optical fibers as far as performance and cost were concerned.
The weaknesses that PDH faced paved way for the introduction and use of the SDH
systems. Although the PDH proved to be a breakthrough in the field of digital
transmission, the weaknesses that made it less demanded includes:
Asynchronous structure that is rigid