Telecommunication Engineering

Dr. Amjad Khattak

 Contents
• Impairments to Voice Channel Transmission
o Attenuation Distortion
o Phase Distortion
o Noise
o Level
o Signal-to-Noise Ratio
• Two-Wire and Four-Wire Transmission
o Two-Wire Transmission
o Four-Wire Transmission
o Operation of a Hybrid

Note: Prepared from Chapter 5 of [Free1]

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 Purpose and Scope
• Our ear is sensitive to 30 Hz ~ 20 kHz
• Primary content of voice signal (energy plus emotion)
occupy a much narrower band, 100–4000 Hz)
• Nominal voice channel occupies the band 0 ~ 4 kHz
• CCITT defines voice channel 300 ~ 3400 Hz
• Bell Lab states “the optimum trade-off between economics
and quality of transmission occurs when the telephone
speech signal is band-limited to the range from about 200 to
3200 Hz.”
• Three basic impairments regarding the voice channel
o Attenuation distortion (frequency response)
o Phase distortion
o Noise
o Two additional impairments, echo and singing

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 Attenuation Distortion
• Signal over a voice channel suffers from distortion
o Output signal is distorted that is not an exact replica of the input
• One form of distortion is attenuation distortion
o Imperfect amplitude-frequency response
o can be avoided if all frequencies within the passband have exactly
same loss (or gain)
o In reality, some frequencies are attenuated more
o For example, on loaded wire-pair systems, higher frequencies are
attenuated more
• On, carrier equipment
o band-pass filters are used
o by definition, attenuation increases as the band edges are
approached.

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 Attenuation–frequency response
• Figure is an example of attenuation characteristics of a voice channel
• Attenuation distortion is measured against a reference frequency.
• CCITT specifies 800 Hz as a reference, used in Europe, Africa …
• 1000 Hz is reference frequency in North America
• European requirement: in 600 Hz ~ 2800 Hz, the level will vary no more
than −1 to +2 dB,
• If a signal at −10 dBm is placed at the input of the channel, we expect
−10 dBm at the output at 800 Hz (if there were no overall loss/gain)

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 Phase Distortion
• Non linear phase shift
• Delay: finite time a signal takes to pass the total extension of a
voice channel or any network
• Absolute delay: end-to-end delay a signal experiences at a
reference frequency
• Propagation time is different for different frequencies
• Wavefront of one frequency arriving before the wavefront of
another in the passband
• Modulated signal will not be distorted if the phase shift changes
uniformly with frequency
• If the phase shift is nonlinear with respect to frequency, the
output signal is distorted compared to the input

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 Differential delay across a voice channel
• Differential Delay: the difference between the maximum and minimum
frequency delays occurring across a band.
• Velocity of propagation varies with frequency because of the electrical
characteristics associated with the network
• In a voice channel, velocity of propagation increases toward band
center and decreases toward band edge
• Figure shows relative delay across the voice channel
• Differential delay: The difference between the maximum and minimum
frequency delays occurring across a band

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 Envelope Delay Distortion (EDD).
• In a given pass-band of a device or a transmission facility, the maximum
difference between the group delays of any two specified frequencies or
wavelengths.
• In a transmission, the distortion that occurs when the rate of change of phase
shift with frequency of a circuit or system is not constant over the frequency
range that is required for the transmission.
• If the phase–frequency over a passband is not linear, distortion will occur in the
transmitted signal
• This phase distortion is often measured by envelope delay distortion (EDD),
which occurs when the rate of change of phase shift with frequency over the
necessary bandwidth is not constant
• Mathematically, envelope delay is the derivative of the phase shift with respect
to frequency
• EDD equals the maximum difference in the derivative over any frequency
interval
• EDD is always a difference between the envelope delay at one frequency and
that at another frequency of interest in the passband.

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 Noise
• Consists of undesired signal in communication circuit
• Noise reduction is probably the most important single
consideration in analog transmission
• Major limiting factor in system performance
• Noise is broken down into four categories:
1. Thermal noise
2. Inter-modulation noise
3. Crosstalk
4. Impulse noise

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 Thermal Noise
• Occurs in all media and communication equipment, including
passive devices (device that does not require a source of
energy, e.g., resistors, capacitors, diodes)
• Occurs due to random electron motion and is characterized by a
uniform distribution of energy over the frequency spectrum
• Every equipment element and the transmission medium
contribute thermal noise if the temperature of that element or
medium is above absolute zero.
• Sets the lower limit of sensitivity of a receiving system,
expressed as a temperature, given in absolute zero or kelvins.
• Directly proportional to bandwidth and temperature. The amount
of thermal noise to be found in 1 Hz of bandwidth is

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 Thermal Noise

• k is Boltzmann’s constant, equal to 1.3803×10−23 J/K, and T is

the absolute temperature (K) of the circuit (device)
• At room temperature, T = 17◦C or 290 K; thus

• 10 log10(4 x 10-21) = 10 log104 + 10 log1010-21 = -204

• 1 W = 103 m
• 10 log10(4 x 10-21+3) = 10 log104 + 10 log1010-18 = -174

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 Thermal Noise
• For a band-limited system (i.e., a system with a
specific bandwidth),
• where B refers to the so-called noise bandwidth in
hertz.
• Thus at 0 K we obtain Pn = −228.6 dBW/Hz of
bandwidth
• for a system with a noise bandwidth measured in
hertz (B) and whose noise temperature is T we obtain

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 Intermodulation Noise (IM)
• Result of the presence of IM products.
• Signals frequencies F1 and F2 passed through a nonlinear
device or medium, the result will contain IM products that are
spurious frequency energy components
• Components may be present either inside and/or outside the
band of interest
• Produced from harmonics of the desired signals in question,
• Mixing possibilities when passing F1 and F2 through a nonlinear
device. The coefficients indicate the first, second, or third
harmonics.

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 Intermodulation (IM) Noise
• Devices passing multiple signals simultaneously, develop large
variations of IM products that resembles white noise.
• White noise: noise containing many frequencies with equal
intensities
• Causes of IM noise:
o Improper level setting. If the level of input to a device is too high,
the device is driven into its nonlinear operating region (overdrive).
o Improper alignment causing a device to function nonlinearly.
o Nonlinear envelope delay.
o Device malfunction.
• To summarize, IM noise results from either a nonlinearity or a
malfunction that has the effect of nonlinearity.

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 Crosstalk
• Unwanted coupling between signal paths.
• Three causes:
(1) electrical coupling between transmission media, such as between
wire pairs on a voice-frequency (VF) cable system
(2) poor control of frequency response (defective or poor filter design)
(3) nonlinear performance in analog (FDM) multiplex systems.
• Excessive level may exacerbate crosstalk.
• There are two types of crosstalk:
1. Intelligible, where at least four words are intelligible to the
listener from extraneous conversation(s) in a 7-s period.
2. Unintelligible: crosstalk resulting from any other form of
disturbing effects of one channel on another.

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 Crosstalk
• Intelligible crosstalk is the greatest impairment
o Huge distraction to the listener.
o Distraction is due to either by fear of loss of privacy
o The user of the primary line consciously or unconsciously
trying to understand what is being said on the secondary or
interfering circuits
o true for any interference that is syllabic in nature.
• Received crosstalk varies with
o the volume of the disturbing talker,
o the loss from the disturbing talker to the point of crosstalk,
o the coupling loss between the two circuits under
consideration
o the loss from the point of crosstalk to the listener

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 Impulse Noise
• Noncontinuous, irregular pulses or noise “spikes” of
o short duration
o broad spectral density
o relatively high amplitude.
• In the language of the trade
o Spikes are often called “hits.”
o One can say the circuit is getting “hit up.”
• Impulse noise degrades telephony ordinarily only
marginally
• May seriously degrade data error performance on
data or other digital waveforms

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 Level
• Primary/ very important parameter in analog network
• In digital network it is of secondary importance
• In our course, the word level means signal magnitude
• Level could be comparative
o Output of an amplifier is 20 dB higher than the input.
o More commonly, we mean absolute level
o In telephony measured in dBm (decibels referenced to 1 milliwatt)
o In radio/wireless, we use dBW (decibels referenced to 12 watts)
• If levels are too high
o amplifiers become overloaded
o resulting in IM and other types of distortion, e.g., crosstalk.
• If levels are too low
o customer satisfaction may suffer with a degraded loudness rating.

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 Signal-to-Noise Ratio
• Perhaps more frequently used than any other
criterion when designing a telecom system.
• S/N ratio expresses in decibels
o the amount by which a signal level exceeds the noise within
a specified bandwidth.
• Several types of material to be transmitted
o A minimum S/N ratio to satisfy the customer or to make the
receiving instrument function within certain specified criteria.
• We might require the following S/N ratios with the
corresponding end instruments:

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 Signal-to-Noise Ratio
• In Fig. a 1000-Hz signal has an S/N ratio of 10 dB
• The level of the noise is +5 dBm, and the signal level is +15
dBm. Thus

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 Two-Wire Transmission
• A telephone conversation requires transmission in both directions.
• When both directions are carried on the same pair of wires, it is
called two-wire transmission.
• Telephones are connected to a local switching center (exchange)
by two-wire circuits.
• A more proper definition is that when oppositely directed portions
of a single telephone conversation occur over the same electrical
transmission channel or path, we call this two-wire operation.
• The terms used should not be taken literally.
• A 2-wire system may only use 1 physical wire, with earth being
used for the return. The primary point is that a 2-wire system is
duplex traffic (voice or data) can travel in both directions without
interaction.

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 Four-Wire Transmission
• 4-wire systems are simplex, data travels in one
direction only,
• each direction (in or out) has its own separate circuit.
• two wires for the transmit path and two wires for the
receive path, or a total of four wires for a full-duplex
• 4-wire circuit is much better, having zero interaction
but uses twice as much cable
• oppositely directed portions of a single conversation
occur over separate transmission channels or paths
• the subscriber loop is two-wire and the output of the
local serving exchange, toward the toll network is
four-wire

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 Four-Wire Transmission
• Fig. shows a PSTN network
o two-wire-to-four-wire conversion from the calling-subscriber end
o conversion from four-wire to two-wire at the called subscriber end
• Conversion from 2-wire operation to 4-wire
o carried out by a terminating set, referred as a term set
o a four-port balanced transformer (a hybrid)

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 Operation of a Hybrid
• A transformer, a power splitter with 4 sets of wire-pair
o First two of the wire-pair: a transmit pair and a receive pair.
o Third pair: connection to the 2-wire link connected to the subscriber
o Last pair: connects the hybrid to a resistance–capacitance
balancing network, which electrically balances the hybrid

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 Operation of a Hybrid
• Signal energy entering from 2-wire divides equally
o half dissipating in the impedance of the 4-wire side receive path
o other half going to the 4-wire side transmit path
o In ideal situation no energy is dissipated by the balancing network
(i.e., there is a perfect balance)
• Signal energy entering from 4-wire side receive path is split in
o half of the energy is dissipated by balancing network (N)
o half at the two-wire port (L)
• Note that any passive device (e.g. a hybrid) inserted in a circuit,
has an insertion loss around 0.5 dB.
• There are two losses:

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