Chapter 1

1.1 Introduction
The ideal telecommunication network has the following characteristics: broadband, multimedia, multi-point, multi-rate and economical implementation for a diversity of services (multiservices) [1]These aspects are examined individually in the following sub-sections.

1.1.1Broadband:
The term broadband refers to the wide bandwidth characteristics of a transmission medium
and its ability to transport multiple signals and traffic types simultaneously. The medium can be
coax, optical fiber, twisted pair, DSL local telephone networks or wireless. In contrast, baseband
describes a communication system in which information is transported across a single channel.

1.1.2Multi-media:
A multi-media call may communicate audio, data, still images, or full-motion video, or any combination
of these media. Each medium has different demands for communication quality, such as:

bandwidth requirement,
signal latency within the network, and
signal fidelity upon delivery by the network.

The information content of each medium may affect the information generated by other
media. For example, voice could be transcribed into data via voice recognition, and data
commands may control the way voice and video are presented. These interactions most often
occur at the communication terminals, but may also occur within the network.

1.1.3Multi-point:
Traditional voice calls are predominantly two party calls, requiring a point-to-point connection
using only the voice medium. To access pictorial information in a remote database would
require a point-to-point connection that sends low bit-rate queries to the database and high
bit-rate video from the database. Entertainment video applications are largely point-to-multipoint connections, requiring one-way communication of full motion video and audio from the
program source to the viewers. Video teleconferencing involves connections among many
parties, communicating voice, video, as well as data. Offering future services thus requires
flexible management of the connection and media requests of a multi-point, multi-media
communication call.

1.1.4 Multi-rate:
A multi-rate service network is one which flexibly allocates transmission capacity to
connections. A multi-media network has to support a broad range of bit-rates demanded by
connections, not only because there are many communication media, but also because a
communication medium may be encoded by algorithms with different bit-rates. For example,
audio signals can be encoded with bit-rates ranging from less than 1 Kbit/s to hundreds of
Kbit/s, using different encoding algorithms with a wide range of complexity and quality of audio
reproduction. Similarly, full motion video signals may be encoded with bit-rates ranging from
less than 1 Mbit/s to hundreds of Mbit/s. Thus a network transporting both video and audio
signals may have to integrate traffic with a very broad range of bit-rates.

1.2 Corporate Circuits:

In this era of information technology Telecommunication networks are the most important
infrastructure element of any business today. As the business increasingly depends on it,
quality of networks is gaining a strategic importance.Corporate customers and enterprises get
leased lines from telecom operators to make their networks reliable.DXX (Digital Cross Connect)
is a network facility used by enterprises to switch and multiplex low-speed voice and data
signals onto high-speed lines and vice versa. A network device often known as DXX node is used
for this purpose. It is typically used to aggregate several data lines into a higher-speed electrical
as well as to distribute signals to various destinations; for example, voice and data traffic may
arrive at the cross-connect on the same facility, but be destined for different carriers. Voice
traffic would be transmitted out one port, while data traffic goes out another[2].

Figure 1 DXX Leased Lines

1.2.1DXX Benefits/Features:

Flexible and reliable data service solutions

Dependable media for WAN connectivity
Local , Nationwide as well as Global coverage
Reliability and high security

1.2.2 Typical DXX applications:

Data applications
Voice applications

1.2.3 DXX as Bandwidth Manager:

With DXX, higher levels of flexibility can be provided which inany other case can cause greater
costs to the network operators. This flexibility comes with DXX at lower costs. With DXX,
synchronization becomes possiblewith higher network speeds and lower network speeds.One
important thing to be noted is that DXX are not packet network switches. DXX switch between
circuits and are a special means for circuit switched networks. This arrangement is
alsoinevitable in longer networks like the ones that expand over weeks or months. This type of
arrangement cannot be made in packet networks that operate over short period of time. DXX
are different from packet switches in a way that packet switches provide thetransportation to
different network destinations while in the case of DXX, it has a specific set of destinations to
which it switches traffic in circuits.Digital Cross connects can connect extremely high speed
networks with lower speed networks toachieve a mutually synchronized speed for common
data transformation in the network. DXX are also capable of interconnect fiber optic equipment
and D1/ T1/ E1 etc. It can even provide compatibility between rather new SDH, PDH and
SONET.If the speed of SDH is 40 mbps and the speed id T1 is 2 Mbps then with the help of two
DXXs,Two T1s and one SDH, you can divert two different streams of T1 to SDH and vice
versamaking a communication of 4 Mbps possible through the network.It is also possible to
connect more T1s with single SDH for maximum medium utilizationthrough multiple DXXs.

1.3 Broadband Circuits:

Internet access connects individual computer terminals, computers, mobile devices, and computer networks to
the Internet, enabling users to access Internet services, such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet
service providers (ISPs) offer Internet access through various technologies that offer a wide range of
data signaling rates (speeds).Consumer use of the Internet first became popular through dial-up Internet
access in the 1990s. By the first decade of the 21st century, many consumers used faster,
broadband Internet access technologies
In the early to mid-1980s, most Internet access was from personal computers and workstations directly
connected to local area networks or from dial-up connections using modems and analog telephone lines. LANs
typically operated at 10 Mbit/s and grew to support 100 and 1000 Mbit/s, while modem datarates grew from 1200 and 2400 bit/s in the 1980s, to 28 and 56 Kbit/s by the mid to late 1990s.
Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just broadband and also known as high-speed
Internet access,are services that provide bit-rates considerably higher than that available using
a 56 Kbit/s modem. In the US National Broadband Plan of 2009, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
defined broadband access as "Internet access that is always on and faster than the traditional
dial-up access", although the FCC has defined it differently through the years.The term broadband
was originally a reference to multi-frequency communication, as opposed to narrowband or
baseband. Broadband is now a marketing term that telephone, cable, and other companies use to
sell their more expensive higher-data-rate products.[3]
Most broadband services provide a continuous "always on" connection; there is no dial-in
process required, and it does not hog phone lines.Broadband provides improved access to
Internet services such as:

Faster world wide web browsing

Faster downloading of documents, photographs, videos, and other large files
Telephony, radio, television, and videoconferencing
Virtual private networks and remote system administration
Online gaming, especially massively multiplayer online role-playing games which are
interaction-intensive
The broadband technologies in widest use are ADSL and cable Internet access. Newer technologies
include VDSL and optical fiber extended closer to the subscriber in both telephone and cable plants.
Fiber-optic communication, while only recently being used in premises and to the curb schemes, has played
a crucial role in enabling broadband Internet access by making transmission of information at
very high data rates over longer distances much more cost-effective than copper wire
technology.

1.3.1 Speed:
The bit rates for dial-up modems range from as little as 110 bit/s in the late 1950s, to a maximum
of from 33 to 64 Kbit/s (V.90 and V.92) in the late 1990s. Dial-up connections generally require the
dedicated use of a telephone line. Broadband technologies supply considerably higher bit rates
than dial-up, generally without disrupting regular telephone use. Various minimum data rates
and maximum latencies have been used in definitions of broadband, ranging from 64 Kbit/s up
to 4.0 Mbit/s. The higher data rate dial-up modems and many broadband services are
"asymmetric"supporting much higher data rates for download (toward the user) than for
upload (toward the Internet).

Table1.Data Rates
Unit

Symbol

Bits

Bytes

Kilobit per second

(103)

Kbit/s

1,000 bit/s

125 B/s

Megabit/s

(106)

Mbit/s

1,000 Kbit/s

125 kB/s

Gigabit/s

(109)

Gbit/s

1,000 Mbit/s

125 MB/s

Terabit/s

(1012)

Tbit/s

1,000 Gbit/s

125 GB/s

Petabit/s

(1015)

Pbit/s

1,000 Tbit/s

125 TB/s

Symbol

Bits

Bytes

(103)

kB/s

8,000 bit/s

1,000 B/s

Megabyte/s

(106)

MB/s

8,000 Kbit/s

1,000 kB/s

Gigabyte/s

(109)

GB/s

8,000 Mbit/s

1,000 MB/s

Terabyte/s

(1012)

TB/s

8,000 Gbit/s

1,000 GB/s

Petabyte/s

(1015)

PB/s

8,000 Tbit/s

1,000 TB/s

Unit
Kilobyte per
second

1.3.2 Broadband access:

The term broadband includes a broad range of technologies, all of which provide higher data
rate access to the Internet. These technologies use wires or fiber optic cables in contrast to
wireless broadband described later.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Integrated Services Digital Network

Leased lines
Cable Internet access
Digital subscriber line (DSL, ADSL, SDSL, and VDSL)
DSL Rings
Fiber to the home
Wireless broadband access