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Public switched telephone network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the network of the world's public circuit-switched
telephone networks, in much the same way that the Internet is the network of the world's public IP-based
packet-switched networks. Originally a network of fixed-line analog telephone systems, the PSTN is
now almost entirely digital, and now includes mobile as well as fixed telephones. It is sometimes
referred to as the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS)

The PSTN is largely governed by technical standards created by the ITU-T, and uses E.163/E.164
addresses (known more commonly as telephone numbers) for addressing.

Contents
„ 1 Architecture and context
„ 2 Digital Channel
„ 3 U.S. Telephone Switch Hierarchy
„ 3.1 Class 1
„ 3.2 Class 2
„ 3.3 Class 3
„ 3.4 Class 4
„ 3.5 Class 5
„ 3.6 International Overseas Call Centers
„ 4 U.K. Telephone Switch Hierarchy
„ 4.1 Subscriber Trunk Dialing
„ 5 French Telephone Switch Hierarchy
„ 6 See also

Architecture and context

The PSTN was the earliest example of traffic engineering to deliver Quality of Service (QoS)
guarantees. A.K. Erlang (1878–1929) is credited with establishing the mathematical foundations of
methods required to determine the amount and configuration of equipment and personnel required to
deliver a specific level of service.

In the 1970s the telecommunications industry conceived that digital services 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 vision has been overtaken
by the disruptive technology of the Internet. Only the oldest parts of the telephone network still use
analog technology for anything other than the last mile loop to the end user, and in recent years digital
services have been increasingly rolled out to end users using services such as DSL, ISDN and Cable
modem systems.

Many observers believe that the long term future of the PSTN is to be just one application of the Internet
- however, the Internet has some way to go before this transition can be made. The QoS guarantee is one
aspect that needs to be improved in the Voice over IP (VoIP) technology.

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There are a number of large private telephone networks which are not linked to the PSTN, usually for
military purposes. There are also private networks run by large companies which are linked to the PSTN
only through limited gateways, like a large private branch exchange (PBX) .

Digital Channel
Although the network was created using analog voice connections through manual switchboards,
automated telephone exchanges replaced most switchboards, and later digital switch technologies were
used. Most switches now use digital circuits between exchanges, with analog two-wire circuits still used
to connect to most telephones.

The basic digital circuit in the PSTN is a 64-kilobits-per-second channel, originally designed by Bell
Labs, called Digital Signal 0 (DS0). To carry a typical phone call from a calling party to a called party,
the audio sound is digitized at an 8 kHz sample rate using 8-bit pulse code modulation (PCM). The call
is then transmitted from one end to another via telephone exchanges. The call is switched using a
signaling protocol (SS7) between the telephone exchanges under an overall routing strategy.

The DS0s are the basic granularity at which switching takes place in a telephone exchange. DS0s are
also known as timeslots because they are multiplexed together using time-division multiplexing (TDM).
Multiple DS0s are multiplexed together on higher capacity circuits into a DS1 signal, carrying 24 DS0s
on a North American or Japanese T1 line, or 32 DS0s (30 for calls plus two for framing and signalling)
on an E1 line used in most other countries. In modern networks, this multiplexing is moved as close to
the end user as possible, usually into cabinets at the roadside in residential areas, or into large business
premises.

The timeslots are conveyed from the initial multiplexer to the exchange over a set of equipment
collectively known as the access network. The access network and inter-exchange transport of the PSTN
use synchronous optical transmission (SONET and SDH) technology, although some parts still use the
older PDH technology.

Within the access network, there are a number of reference points defined. Most of these are of interest
mainly to ISDN but one – the V reference point – is of more general interest. This is the reference point
between a primary multiplexer and an exchange. The protocols at this reference point were standardised
in ETSI areas as the V5 interface.

U.S. Telephone Switch Hierarchy

In order to organize automated
operator dialing, and later Direct
Distance Dialing (DDD), AT&T divided the various switches in its network in to a hierarchy containing
five levels (or classes). This was a formal expansion of the network structure that had developed within
AT&T Long Lines as local telephone exchanges had been connected together. As long distance calling
was originally established, it could take up to seven minutes to complete a connection to another major
city, and small points would need to have "call back" appointments made with long lead times for
circuits to be reserved.

By the mid-1920s, a revised manual system where "local" toll operators connected tandem routes (a

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process formally called Combined

Line and Recording) as needed to
complete telephone calls, reduced
the process to an average of two
minutes, but still meant that some
complex routings might interconnect
as many as sixteen points! As long
distance services grew in the
Contigous Continental US (48 states)
and Canada, the amount of overhead
equipment and people required to
determine and establish Rates and
Routes became excessive. As
technology improved, network
design included consideration of
more automated and defined AT&T PSTN Office Classification Hierarchy
procedures. Thus, beginning with a
switch installed in Philadelphia PA
in 1943, AT&T began to automate the system, and establish a new switch hierarchy, which lasted until
the breakup of AT&T in the 1980s.

The underlying principle of the five-level hierarchy was to provide economies of scale by establishing
direct connections between centralized call "collection points" (essentially the Class 4 offices) where
economically feasible, and to provide additional concentration points (Class 1 through 3) to handle
overflow traffic that could not be handled directly, or to handle traffic to locations which were less likely
to be dialed from a given point - usually longer distances and/or smaller locations in other parts of the
North American dialing plan. The North American plan differed from those of other continents in the
existence of three concentration levels of hierarchy for domestic (here defined as including all those
points "within" the dialing plan) calls, a need not required where the larger geographic area was broken
into several national plan jurisdictions. However, it is important to note that this was not a strict
hierarchy of absolute levels. If enough call traffic existed between geographic areas, for example, a
Class 4 office could have direct trunk connections not only to a Class 3 office, but to a Class 2 or Class 1
office, and vice versa. For example, the Class 2 switch in Toronto (OTORON0101T2) had connections
not only to the Class 1 switch in Montréal (MTRLPQ0201T1), but to the Class 1 switch in White Plains
(WHPLNY0201T1), one of the Class 2 switches in New York City (NYCMNYAA02T2) and a Class 3
switch in Buffalo (BFLONYFR04T3). Network engineers re-worked the system as necessary to balance
off call completion percentages with budgetary limitations. In fact, minor changes were made almost
every month.

Initially excluded from the development of the North American network were locations that eventually
would become part of the North American Numbering Plan Area - Alaska, Hawaii, some other United
States possessions, various outlying Northern and rural portions of Canada, and much of the Caribbean.
These areas were handled as International Calls until more advanced computer hardware and software
allowed them to be included in the automated, integrated systems in later decades. After the spread of
stored program control switching, many services of Class 1 through 3 could be delegated to newer
switches in the class 4 and 5 offices, and that portion of the network became obsolete, although it was
partially replaced by the establishment of multiple long distance carrier networks, connected to the local
networks through their points of presence.

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Class 1

The class 1 office was the Regional Center (RC). Regional centers served three purposes in the North
American toll network (a) their connections were the "last resort" for final setup of calls when routes
between centers lower in the hierarchy were not available (b) they were initially staffed by engineers
who had the authority to block portions of the network within the region in case of emergencies or
network congestion - although these functions were transferred after 1962 to the Network
Control/Operations Center and the distributed Network Management Centers (see below) (c) they
provided collection points (until the development of more advanced computer hardware and software for
toll operators) for circuits that would be passed along to one of the international overseas gateways
(which operated as special centers outside the formal North American hierarchy). The regional centers
updated each other on the status of every circuit in the network. These centers would then reroute traffic
around the trouble spots and keep each informed at all times. There were twelve Regional Centers in
North America, ten in the United States, nine of which were operated by AT&T (White Plains NY,
Wayne PA, Pittsburgh PA, Norway IL [which wasn't a real place, but a rural crossroads a distance away
from Chicago - an underground office built in a cornfield with hardened construction to withstand
nuclear attack], Rockdale GA, St Louis MO, Dallas TX, Denver CO, and Sacramento CA), one by GTE
(San Bernardino CA). Two centres in Canada were operated on behalf of the Trans-Canada Telephone
System, one by Bell Canada (Montréal PQ), and one by Saskatchewan Telephone, (Regina SK).

For control and oversight of the entire network hierarchy, AT&T established a Network Control Center
in New York City in 1962, renamed the Network Operations Center and relocated to Bedminster, NJ in
1977. Engineering supervision was also centralized in eight regional Network Management Centers. Part
of the realignment and dispersion of functions was to insure maximum network integrity in the event of
a national emergency, a major concern in that era. The basic structure of this unit, although significantly
altered since the AT&T divestiture in the 1980s, still exists as the Global Operations Center, with
domestic regional centers in Colorado and Georgia.

Class 2

The class 2 office was the Sectional Center (SC). The sectional center typically connected major toll
centers within one or two states or provinces, or a significant portion of a large state or province, to
provide interstate or interprovincial connections for long-distance calls. At various times, there were
between 50 and 75 active class two offices in the network.

Class 3

The class 3 office was the Primary Center (PC). Calls being made beyond the limits of a small
geographical area where circuits connected directly between class 4 toll offices would be passed from
the toll center to the primary center. These locations use high usage trunks to complete connection
between toll centers. The primary center never served dial tone to the user. The number of primary
centers in the network fluctuated from time to time, ranging between 150 and 230.

Class 4

The class 4 office is the Toll Center (TC), Toll Point (TP), or Intermediate Point (IP). A call going
between two end offices not directly connected together, or whose direct trunks are busy, is routed thru

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the toll center. The toll center is also used to connect to the long-distance network for calls where added
costs are incurred, such as operator handled services. This toll center may also be called the tandem
office because calls have to pass through this location to get to another part of the network. Toll centers
might have been operated either as interstate facilities, under the operation of AT&T Long Lines (GTE
in a few cases), or by local telephone companies, handling long distance traffic to points within a
particular operating company territory. Class 4 offices continue to exist, although with considerable
changes, as they handle local exchange company interconnections, locally charged or long distance
rated, or provide facilities for connection to long distance company points of presence.

Class 5

The class 5 office is the local exchange or end office. It delivers dial tone to the customer. The end
office, also called a branch exchange, is the closest connection to the end customer. Over 19,000 end
offices in the United States alone provide basic dial tone services.

In modern times only the terms Class 4 and Class 5 are much used, as any tandem office is referred to as
a Class 4. This change was prompted in great part by changes in the power of switches and the relative
cost of transmission, both of which tended to flatten the switch hierarchy. The breakup of the Bell
System, and the need for each of the surviving regional operating companies to handle long distance
interconnections, also promoted the inclusion of inter-regional and international processing through
larger Class 4 offices.

International Overseas Call Centers

The special requirements of placing calls to locations outside main Canadian/United States points meant
that these calls were handled by special operators in locations where connections could be monitored to
other countries. The technology to automate these connections began to develop in the 1960s (see Bell
Laboratories Record 42:7, July-August 1964), and as the decade of the 1970s progressed, North
American customers who were served by electronic offices began to be able to directly dial to an
increasing number of international points (service between ESS offices in New York and London began
on March 1, 1970). However, since points could not be connected until equipment in both countries was
converted to electronic switching, implementation to many locations took some time, and while the
majority of calls began to be connected via automated systems by the 1990s - after the termination of the
five-level hierarchy - the majority of countries were still connected via manual intervention until the
beginning of the 21st century.

U.K. Telephone Switch Hierarchy

The forerunner of British Telecom, the General Post Office, also organized its intercity trunk network
along similar hierarchical lines to that of North America. However, because of the significantly smaller
geographic area involved, fewer levels of connection were required, and no formal numbering of class
offices was made.

There were a few special exceptions to the following description, notably those involving Northern
Ireland, some of the Channel Dependencies, and the few locations in England which were served by
non-GPO companies, such as Hull and Portsmouth.

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In the early days of manual exchanges, outlying areas (eventually called dependent exchanges) were
connected through progressively larger locations (eventually called group switching centres) into one of
the main cities - Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, and Manchester. As automation
began to be established in the network, this was refined into a system of approximately fifty tandem
locations for Group Switching Centres, with an additional layer of perhaps a dozen Wide Area Tandems
to provide for busy periods, emergency routing, etc. There were also some additional Local Tandems to
handle traffic in the London Metropolitan Area without involving the GSCs, although this was a later
development, as it required common control signalling for identification.

Subscriber Trunk Dialing

The dialing codes used by trunk operators to connect calls were originally assigned and established to
ensure speed with pulse dialing equipment. With the advent of subscriber dialed calls, numbering
patterns were reassigned to provide for mnemonic methods of improving customer performance. STD
codes all began with 0. The largest cities, which had seven digit local numbers, were allocated special
codes - London, 01; Birmingham, 021; etc. Smaller towns were typically allocated a code based on the
first letters of their name, translated into digits on the telephone dial. For example, OXford translated
into 09 on the British phone dial, so the original STD code for Oxford was 0096. However, because of
subscriber dialing errors, there was an early decision to eliminate codes which began with "00" and
Oxford soon became 0865, the 86 standing for UNiversity.

Some of the smallest towns connected to the trunk network only through nearby switches. In those
cases, STD codes were composed of combination of the code for the nearby switch, plus some
additional digits that were unused in that nearby switch, but which served two purposes (1) to identify
the end location, and allow the nearby switch to complete the call (2) to "pad out" the overall length of
the dialing string, since a small town might only have a three-digit telephone number, and allow the
network to move to a more-standard number length.

As step offices became rarer, Subscriber Trunk Dialing Codes no longer followed the original rules, and
were significantly revised in the mid-1990s, with further changes as wider use of mobile phones and
non-BT competition came into the UK market. There are now some 70000 local exchange codes in use
in the UK. The largest trunk carrier, British Telecom, connects the local network through some 60
transit (tandem) switches.

French Telephone Switch Hierarchy

The early history of the telecommunications switching network in France is, unusually for this country,
one of decentralized development. Early telephone exchanges were installed by local communities, often
by private companies, and only later taken over by the French government. As a result, by 1930, France
was served by almost 25,000 local exchanges, but almost half of these had less than five subscribers.
Additionally, telephones were not considered important for residential customers (nor for small
businesses), so France had a low penetration rate of telephone subscribers.

Under these conditions, early network development revolved around two major distinctions, "Paris" and
"not Paris." Within metropolitan Paris, automated step switches appeared, with a level of tandem
switching, before World War II. In the rest of the country, automation was confined to major cities, with
a high level of manual intervention.

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World War II heavily damaged the French telephone system, so that by the end of the War, only about
140 automatic exchanges (mostly in Paris and its banlieues) and 228 manual exchanges were fully
operational. Repair of much of the network had been deferred during the war due to lack of parts, as
well as co-opting of technical personnel for German military needs.

Recovery was rapid after the war, and the extensive damage in some ways helped the modernization of
the system as new technology was introduced. The DGT (Direction Générale des Télécommunications)
introduced automated operator dialing of long distance connections, generally using the INSEE codes as
"area codes" for the various departments - with special handling for Paris. These codes subsequently
became public as customer dialing of long distance calls began to be introduced in the late 1960s and
early 1970s.

The network had a minimal hierarchy, with most connections routed into a central tandem in each
department, and from there to Paris. As greater installation of private telephones, for both small business
and private residences, increased in the 1970s, direct connections among the tandems in adjacent regions
were installed, and a three-level tier of switches, local, tandem, and regional interconnection was
implemented, with final routing through Paris. Also, during the 1970s and 1980s, the smaller rural
switches were replaced and combined with nearby automated offices, and a closed numbering scheme
was adopted for dialing consistency.

In common with most countries, the development of technology allowed for different networking, and
the maintenance of a formal hierarchy disappeared into a distributed network. By the mid-1990s, a
revised structure had appeared, reflected by the replacement of the old departmental area codes by the
assignment of regional codes and a major renumbering scheme for strategic planning, privatization, and
deregulation under the auspices of ART, the Autorité de régulation des télécommunications (Regulatory
Authority for Telecommunications - since 2005, ARCEP, as responsibility for postal services was
added). After 1996, the country prepared for complete deregulation of the telephone network. Thus, the
local exchanges (zones à autonomie d'acheminement) are connected somewhat differently by various
carriers. However, the largest of these, based upon the (partially) privatised former government network,
is a two-level long distance hierarchy, based on 80 CTS (centre de transit secondaire) and 8 CTP (centre
de transit primaire) locations. In addition, there are 12 CTI (centre de transit internationaux) for
connections to areas which are not integrated into the French telephone network [note that some
overseas locations are considered "domestic" for telecommunications purposes].

See also
„ Emergency telephone number
„ Digital Subscriber Line
„ Direct Distance Dialing
„ Plain old telephone service (POTS)
„ Integrated Services Digital Network
„ Telephone exchange
„ Telecommunication
„ Signaling System 7
„ SIP trunking
„ PATS

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