The Public

Telephone
Network

Introduction
The telecommunication industry is the
largest industry in the world. There are over
1400 independent telephone companies in the
United States, jointly referred to as the public
telephone network (PTN). The PTN uses the
largest computer network in the world to
interconnect millions of subscribers in such a
way that the myriad of companies functions as
a single entity.

One characteristic of the PTN that

makes it unique from other industries is
that every pieces of equipment, technique,
or procedure, new or old, is capable of
working with the rest of the system. In
addition, using the PTN does not require
any special skills or knowledge.

Telephone Transmission
System Environment
In its simplest form, a telephone
transmission system is a pair of wires
connecting two telephones or data modems
together. A more practical transmission
system is comprised of a complex aggregate
of electronic equipment and associated
transmission medium, which together provide
a multiplicity of channels over which many
subscribers messages and control signals
are propagated.

In general, a telephone call between two

points is handled by interconnecting a number of
different transmission systems in tandem to form
an overall transmission path (connection)
between two points.
To provide a service that permits people or
data modems to talk to each other at a distance,
the communication system (telephone network)
must supply the means and facilities for
connecting the subscribers at the beginning of a
call and disconnecting them at the completion of
the call. Therefore, switching, signaling, and
transmission functions must be involved in the
service.

Switching function identifies and

connects the subscribers to a suitable
transmission path.
Signaling functions supply and
intercept control and supervisory signals
needed to perform the operation.
Transmission functions involve the
actual transmission of a subscribers
messages and any necessary control
signals.

The Public Telephone

Network
The PTN accommodates two types of
subscribers they are:
Private subscribers to the public
sector are customers who lease
equipment, transmission media
(facilities), and services from telephone
companies on a permanent basis. The
leased circuits are designed and
configured for their use only and are
often referred to as private line circuits
or dedicated circuits.

Public subscribers to the public

sector of the PTN share equipment and
facilities that are available to all the
public subscribers to the networks. This
equipment is appropriately called
common usage equipment, which
includes transmission facilities and
telephone switches.

In
its
simplest
form,
data
communications is the transmittal of digital
information between two pieces of digital
equipment, which includes computers.
The PTN
was intended to for
transferring voice, not digital data.
Therefore to use PTN data communication
we necessarily use modem to convert it to
data for more suitable transmission over
the wireless carrier systems and
conventional transmission media.

Instruments, Local Loops,

Trunk Circuits and
Exchanges
Telephone network equipment can be
broadly divided into four primary
classifications:
Instruments is any device used to
originates and terminate calls to transmit
and receive signals into and out of the
telephone network, such as a 2500 type
telephone set, a cordless telephone, or
data modem. The instrument is often
referred to as station equipment and the
location of the instrument as the station. A
subscriber is the operator of the
instrument.

Local loops is simply the dedicated

cable facility used to connect an
instrument at a subscribers station to
the closest telephone office. In the
United States alone, there are several
hundred million miles of cable used for
local subscriber loops. Local loops
connected to the public switched
telephone network are two-wire metallic
cable pairs. However, local loops used
with private-line data circuits are
generally four-wire configurations.

Trunk Circuits is similar to a local

loop except trunk circuits are used to
interconnect two telephone offices. The
primary difference between a local loop
and a trunk is that a local loop is
permanently associated with a particular
station, whereas a trunk is a commonusage connection. Can be as simple as
a pair of copper wires twisted together
or as sophisticated as an optical fiber
cable.

A trunk circuit could also be a wireless

communications channel. And can also be a
two or four wire, depending on what type of
facility is used.
Exchanges is a central location where
subscribers are interconnected, either
temporarily or on a permanent basis.
Telephone company switching machines
are located in exchanges. Switching
machines are programmable matrices that
provide temporary signal paths between
two subscribers. Telephone sets and data
modems are connected through local loops
to
switching
machines
located
in
exchanges.

Exchanges connected directly to local

loops are often called local exchanges or
sometimes dial switches or local dial
switches. The first exchange was installed
in 1878, only two years after the invention
of the telephone. A central exchange is
also called a central telephone exchange,
central office (CO), central wire center,
central exchange, central office exchange,
or simply central.

The purpose of telephone exchange

is to provide a path for a call to be complex
between two parties. To process a call, a
switch must provide three primary
functions:
Identify the subscribers
Set up or establish a communications
path
Supervise the calling processes

Local Central Office Telephone

Exchanges
Telephones sets were originally
connected directly to each other with
heavy-gauge iron wire strung between
poles, requiring a dedicated cable pair and
telephone set for each subscriber you
wished to connect to.

FIGURES.
Figure 18-1 Dedicated telephone interconnections:
(a) Interconnecting two subscribers

(b) Interconnecting one subscriber to

five other telephone sets;

(c) Interconnecting four subscribers

Generally, a community is served by

only one telephone company. The
community is divided into zones, and each
zone is served by different central
telephone exchange. The number of
stations served and the density determine
the number of zones established in a given
community. If a subscriber in the zone
wishes to call a station in another zone, a
minimum of two local exchanges is
required.

Operator-assisted Local
Exchanges
The first commercial telephone switchboard
began operation in New Haven, Connecticut, on
January 28, 1878, marking the birth of the public
switched telephone network. The switchboard
served 21 telephones attached to only eight lines
(obviously, some were party lines). On February 17
of the same year, western Union opened the first
large-city exchange in San Francisco, California,
and on February 21, the New Haven District
telephone Company published the worlds first
telephone directory comprised of a singled page
listing only 50 names. The directory was
immediately followed by a more comprehensive
listing by the Boston Telephone Dispatch
Company.

Figures.
Figure 18-2 Patch Panel
Configuration

Figure 18-3 Central office exchange: (a)

without interconnects; (b) with an interconnect

The first local telephone exchanges

were switchboards (sometimes called patch
panels on patch boards) where manual
interconnects were accomplished using patch
chords and jacks. All subscriber stations were
connected through local loops to jacks on the
switch board. Whenever someone wished to
initiate a call, they sent a ringing signal
operated a relay at the switchboard, which in
turn illuminated a supervisory lamp located
above the jack for the line. Manual
switchboards remained in operation until
1978, when Bell System replaced their last
cord switchboard on Santa Catalina off the
coast of California near Los Angeles.

Connecting a 100 private telephone

lines to a single exchange required 100 local
loops and a switchboard equipped with 100
relays, jacks, and lamps. When someone
wished to initiate a telephone call, they rang
the switchboard. An operator answered the
call by saying, central. The calling party told
the operator whom they wished to be
connected to. The operator would then ring
the destination, and when someone
answered the telephone, the operator would
remove her plug from the jack and connect
the calling an called parties together with
special patchcord equipped with plugs on
both ends.

This type of system was called ring

down system. If only a few subscriber
were connected to switchboard, the
operator had tittle trouble keeping track of
which jacks were for which subscriber
(usually by name). However, as the
popularity of the telephone grew, it soon
became necessary to assign each
subscriber line a unique telephone
number. A switchboard using four digits
could accommodate 10,000 telephone
numbers (0000 to 9999).

END

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