JMJ Marist Brothers

College of Engineering and Technology

NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

STATISTICAL TIME-DIVISION MULTIPLEXING

____________________________________

A Research Paper to be Presented

to Engr. Victorino R. Tobias, Jr.

Faculty of the College of Engineering and Technology

Notre Dame of Marbel University

City of Koronadal, Province of South Cotabato

____________________________________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the EC148

Digital Communications

____________________________________

By:

Gleyo, Kristine Joy V.

Tamdang, Francis

Tampus, Ivan Frederick P.

Reyes, Deo Glenn

March 21, 2017

 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

STATISTICAL TIME-DIVISION MULTIPLEXING

INTRODUCTION

One of the major concerns of telecommunications has always been the cost. In order to

reduce network costs, number of telecommunication links needed between two points are often

minimized, leading to the existence of Multiplexing in data transmissions (Goleniewski, 2001).

Multiplexing is the process of transferring information, in any form, from one or more

source to one or more destinations over the same transmission medium. Although one does not

necessarily have to be transmitted at the same time or be in the same bandwidth, having the

same facility is a must (Tomasi, 2004). In order to modulate, a multiplexer, or mux for short, which

is a logic circuit that switches digital data from several input lines onto a single output line in a

specified sequence, is to be used. While a demultiplexer, also called as demux, is used to retrieve

the multiplexed data (Floyd, 2000).

Comp. Comp.
A D
Binary Binary Binary Binary
Multiplexer data data data data Demultiplexer
from from B from C from
A to D to E to F A to D
Comp. Comp.
B E

Comp. Comp.
C F

Fig.1. Illustration of Basic Multiplexing Application

Shown above is the illustration of the basic multiplexing application in computer

communication. Information computers A, B, and C are digitally encoded and are converted into
 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

a serial code to be transmitted into a single medium, the red arrow lines, and converted back to

parallel data, which will be distributed to computers D, E, and F, respectively. In such a way,

where three data are transmitted, occupying only a certain bandwidth of the medium at certain

time intervals, cost is minimized by preserving bandwidth consumption. The said application, also

shows one of the most prominent multiplexing technique, which will be discussed in this research

paper, the Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM).

Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) is a technique in multiplexing in which data from several

sources are interleaved on a time basis and sent on a single communication channel or data link.

It could be categorized in either a Bit-Interleaved TDM, Byte-Interleaved TDM, Synchronous TDM,

or Asynchronous TDM (Floyd, 2013).

In this research paper, we will be discussing the most efficient out of the four according to

Floyd (2013), the Asynchronous Time-Division Multiplexing, or commonly known as Statistical

TDM.

DEFINITION

Statistical Time-Division Multiplexing, also known as intelligent TDM, Statistical Muxes or

simply Stat Muxes, is the process which allows a greater bit rate to be allocated to a program that

has a great deal of motion, while a lower bit rate is allocated to programs with more static scenes

(Blake, 2008).

In digital transmissions, TDM, usually Synchronous TDM, is usually used to link remote

data terminals, or portable computers (PCs), to a common server or mainframe computer.

However, most of the time, there are no information that are transferred in any direction even if

all the terminals are active. The same is true to normal telephone conversations. This leads to

wasting a lot of time within each TDM frame, thus makes the communication process less efficient.
 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

In order to prevent this from happening, a technique different from Synchronous TDM, called

Statistical TDM, is generated and used (Tomasi, 2004).

It was introduced to overcome the limitation of a standard TDM, in which stations cannot

use each others time slots. It is also called the intelligent mux because a stat mux is a smarter

mux and is a mux that has more memory than other muxes. It only allocates slots on a demand

basis. By dynamically allocating the time slots, you get the most efficient use of bandwidth.

Moreover, because of the dynamic allocation of the slots, a stat mux is able to carry two to five

times more traffic than a traditional time-division mux. This mux possesses the additional

intelligence in terms of compression and error-control features (Goleniewski, 2001).

OPERATION

Just like the synchronous time-division multiplexer, a statistical multiplexer has a finite

number of low-speed data input lines with one high-speed multiplexed data output line. Moreover,

each input line has its own digital encoder and buffer. There are more input lines than the time

slots available in each TDM frame. Consequently, there are more output lines than time slots

within the TDM frame.

Fig.2. Synchronous TDM Operation

It can be observed that in Fig.2, where the illustration of the Synchronous Time-Division

Multiplexing is shown, there are three (3) input devices and three (3) number of slots per frame,
 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

in a total of three frames in transmission. Even the empty slots were included. But in Fig.3, where

the illustration of the Asynchronous time-Division Multiplexing is shown, there are four (4) input

devices but still has three (3) number of slots per frame, in a total of three frames still too.

Fig.3. Asynchronous TDM Operation

Simply, the multiplexer scans the input buffers, and collects the input data until a frame is

filled. Once this is done, a frame is transmitted. But in the statistical TDM, empty slots are

excluded and the next slot with data in it occupies the slot emptied by the exclusion of the null

time slots (Tomasi, 2004).

STATISTICAL TDM FRAME FORMAT

Beginning Address Control Statistical TDM FCS Ending

Flag Field Field subframe field Flag

Fig.4. Overall Statistical TDM Frame Format

 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

The overall Stat Mux format, illustrated in Fig.4, includes a beginning and an ending flag

that states the beginning and end of the frame respectively, an address field that identifies the

transmitting device, a control field, a statistical TDM subframe, and a Frame Check Sequence

(FCS) field that provides error detection. But when a there is only one source that is transmitting,

it will only contain an Address Field and a Data Field, as shown in the Fig.5 below. As mentioned

earlier, the Address Field determines the transmitting device, while the data field is where the

data extracted from the input to be transmitted is located. Such is only true to a single-source per

frame transmission. However, when there are multiple sources per frame, shown in Fig.6, as

series of address field, length field and data field is included. Unlike the single-source per frame

stat mux, the length field is included as a necessary means to specify the length of the data stream

from individual sources (Tomasi, 2004).

Address Data
Flag Field

Fig.5. One-Source per Frame Format

Address Length Data Address Length Data

Flag Field Field Flag Field Field

Fig.6. Multiple Sources per Frame Format

In the following page, a comparison between transmission without multiplexing, illustrated

in Fig.7, transmission using Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM), in Fig.8, and transmission using

the Statistical Time-Division Multiplexing technique, in Fig. 9, will be briefly discussed.

 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

Fig.7. Without Multiplexing

In Fig.7, every data from every source each have a carrier of its own upon transmission

and each data have a unique destination of their own. In total, there are three (3) sources, three

(3) transmission mediums and three (3) destinations. While in Fig.8, it is shown that only a single

transmission medium is used in transmitting three (3) data from three (3) different sources into

three (3) different destinations. Parallel data are serially transmitted through this single medium

with an even, fixed and respective allocation of time slots corresponding to the order of the allotted

sources, and is distributed to the respective data destinations after it passed through the

demodulator circuit.

Fig.8. Time-Division Multiplexing

 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

However, in Fig. 9, a type of time-division multiplexing (TDM) coined as Statistical

Multiplexing is illustrated in a less conventional way. As mentioned, TDM is categorized into Bit-

Interleaving TDM, Byte/Word-Interleaving TDM, Synchronous TDM and Asynchronous TDM. As

also previously mentioned, Asynchronous TDM is also known as Statistical TDM and sometimes

even intelligent TDM. This is due to the reason that in this technique, the circuit before

transmission, the multiplexer, is intelligent enough not to include empty slots, and even more

intelligent to fill these slots with the next data-filled ones (Goleniewski, 2001).

Similar to the previous figure shown, there are three (3) sources, one (1) transmission

medium and three (3) destinations still. But the allocated time slots in the transmission medium is

now varying and flexible. Parallel data are also still serially transmitted through this single medium

with the allocation of time slots corresponding to the order of the allotted sources, and is

distributed to the respective data destinations after it passed through the demodulator circuit, but

are no longer in a fixed manner.

Fig.9. Statistical Time-Division Multiplexing

 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

COMPARISON FROM SYNCHRONOUS TDM

Source:
fig. 21. Comparison between synchronous and statistical TDM, from Wayne Tomasi; Digital T-Carriers and Multiplexing, Electronic
Communications System: Fundamentals Through Advanced, 5th ed., p.480, Pearson Education, Inc., Retrieved March 14, 2017.

Fig.10. Comparison of Synchronous and Asynchronous TDM

As mentioned by Floyd (2013), the Statistical Time-Division Multiplexing is a more efficient

method compared to that of the Synchronous Time-Division Multiplexing.

Shown above is an example of the comparison of the mentioned time division multiplexing

techniques. In the above illustration, there are four (4) inputs, namely: A, B, C, and D; and four

sample time intervals, namely: t1, t2, t3, and t4. Out of the 16 inputs, only 8 has a sensible data in
 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

it. The rest, does not contain any information. In a Synchronous TDM, all of the inputs will be

transmitted, leading to 50 percent inefficiency of the data transmission, since half of the inputs

contain useless data. However, synchronization bits in each frame is in a constant pattern. On

the other hand, in Asynchronous TDM, or more commonly known as statistical TDM, no wasted

slots are transmitted since slots without information in it wont be transmitted. Although,

synchronization bits in each frame varies.

Generally, Synchronous TDM is when time slots allotted to each source are fixed. It is

where each time slot is transmitted whether or not the source has data to send. This results in an

inefficient use of communications channel because sometimes some of the time slots are empty.

Statistical TDM approach, on the other hand, improves efficiency by making use of the time slots.

Only the data from active sources are transmitted, so there are no blank time slots for inactive

sources. The time slot assignment is said to be variable rather than fixed.

According to Tech-Experts blogger, Dashmesh Singh, published online at around 10:57

PM, February 6, 2014, Synchronous TDM and Statistical TDM differs in seven (7) parameters:

(1) working parameter, (2) number of slots used, (3) buffering done, (4) need of addressing, (5)

synchronization bits, (6) capacity, and (7) Data separation.

1. Working Parameter. In statistical TDM, slots are allotted dynamically. In other words,

input line is given slots in output frame if and only if it has data to send. The

Synchronous TDM, on the other hand, has one output time slot in each input, even

though no data is in it.

2. Number of Slots. In statistical TDM, number of slots in each frame are less than the

number of inputs, while in synchronous TDM, the number of slots in each frame are

always equal to the number of inputs.

 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

3. Buffering Done. In Stat TDM, buffering, a state where excess data goes into when

time slots are all busy (Goleniewski, 2001), is done, and only the inputs, whose buffer

contains no data to send, are given slots in the output frame.

4. Need of Addressing. In statistical TDM, the length a frame and the positional

significance of each time slot is lost, thus each slot must carry an address of the

destination, as well as data, to ensure proper delivery. This will ensure that there will

be a means of determining which data will be in which time slot and how many time

slots are included in each frame. While a synchronous TDM only carries data and does

not need any further addressing.

5. Synchronization. A stat mux uses no synchronization bits, while the synchronous

TDM uses these bits at the beginning of each frame.

6. Capacity. The capacity of link in statistical TDM is usually less than the sum of the

capacity of each channel, while in synchronous TDM, there is a maximum bandwidth

utilization if all inputs have data to send.

7. Data Separation. Multiplexer at the demultiplexer decomposes each frame by

checking the local address of each data unit. The said extracted data unit from the

frame is then passed to a destination device. In the Synchronous TDM demultiplexer,

on the other hand, discards framing bits and extracts data unit in turn. The said data

unit from frame is then passed to the destination device.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

As far as what had been discussed, statistical time-division multiplexing is very promising.

But all good things have its unperfect sides, so this section of the study discusses about the

reported advantages and disadvantages of the said multiplexing technique.

 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

Since this technique allocates time slots only on a demand basis, preservation of slots will

be achieved, thus less bandwidth is required to transmit information into the other end of the

process. This method is ideal to information transfer of light loads. Also, it requires only a lower

data rate than the synchronous TDM. Most of all, when operating at the same transmission rate,

stat TDM can support more users compared to that of the synchronous TDM (Tomasi, 2004).

The downside of this technique though is that since the synchronization of the frame is

lost and altered, the length of a frame varies and the positional significance of each time slot is

lost. This will lead to the lack of means of knowing which channels data will be in which time slot,

or how many time slots will be included in each frame. Thus, each slot must have its own address

of destination, added to the data it is carrying, to ensure proper transmission. This will require

more necessary overhead per time slot and will have a direct impact on the system performance,

where it is ideal to have minimum overheads (Tomasi, 2004).

APPLICATIONS

As a method for transmitting several types of data simultaneously across a single

transmission line or medium, Asynchronous TDM or Statistical TDM is usually used in the

management of data transmission through a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network

(WAN). Most of the time, the transmitted data is simultaneously transmitted from any number of

input devices attached to a certain network, such as computers, printers and/or fax machines. It

can also be used in Telephone switchboard settings to manage simultaneous incoming and

outgoing calls from multiple, internal telephone lines (Teves, 2014).

Shown on the next page in Fig.11 is the illustration of the Statistical TDM, where the

shared channel or medium, the identification of a cycle of multiplexing data and the identification

data is stated. The basic operation of the Statistical TDM is similar to the basic multiplexing
 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

application illustration shown in the first figure, but in the former, slots without data are excluded

in the transmission and the time slots allotted to them in the serial medium is occupied by the next

data-filled time slots, making it flexible.

Fig.11. Statistical TDM

Since time slots are flexible, and since bandwidth efficiency is evident, high speed Mbps,

or possible Gbps, can be accumulated. Due to the mentioned reasons, plus its Legacy LAN

Emulation feature, Stat mux can support voice, video and data transmission, allowing multimedia

and other mixed services, over a single network, which can be through mediums such as twisted-

pair, coaxial or fiber-optic cables. This technique has the capacity to use all common physical

transmission paths like Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), which is a transport protocol of

data over fiber that were originally designed to transport circuit mode communications. Also, it

provides the capability to support both connection-oriented and connectionless traffic using

Application Adaptation Layer (AALs), which allows existing networks, such as packet networks,

to connect to Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) facilities, which is a technology and protocol

designed to use SONET as its carrier service. Moreover, it supports the broadest range of

burstiness, delay tolerance and loss performance of a network through the implementation of

multiple QoS classes, which includes Network Controls, Voice Real-Time Transport (VRTT),
 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

Clinical Life Critical (CLC), Multimedia Conferencing, Real-Time Interactive, Multimedia

Streaming, Call Signaling, Low-Latency Data, OAM Network Management, High-Throughput

Data, Low-priority Data and Best Effort QoS. Generally, it provides the best multiple service

support (Teves, 2014).

Fig.12. Sample Illustration of a SONET Connection

Figures 12, 13, and 14 respectively shows how the transfer of data flows using a single

medium, whatever this transmission medium could be. Figure 13 illustrates the basic example of

a Local Area Network (LAN), which is a combination of a hardware and a software. One example

of LAN that is available to the market is Ethernet, a data communication standard which is now

most widely used. Such LAN was also used to illustrate a SONET connection in figure 13. Figure

14, on the other hand, shows an illustration of how Wide Area Network (WAN) works. It is

composed of the interconnections of different LANs that transfer data with other LANs through
 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

the Subnet. But then again, the subnet is composed of a network of routers. Similarly, the LANs

is composed of the networks of hosts.

Fig.13. Sample Illustration of Ethernet LAN Data Transfer

Fig.14. Sample Illustration of WAN Connection

 JMJ Marist Brothers
College of Engineering and Technology
NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
City of Koronadal, South Cotabato

REFERENCES

Blake, R. (2008). Electronic communications systems (2nd ed., chap. 20, p.772). Singapore:

Thomson Learning Asia.

Singh, D. (2014, February 6). Difference between synchronous TDM and statistical TDM. [Web

log post]. Retrieved on March 14, 2017 on

http://dash10mesh.blogspot.com/2014/02/difference-between-synchronous-tdm-

and.html

Floyd, T.L. (2000). Digital Fundamentals (7th ed., pp.15-16). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:

Pearson Education, Inc.

Floyd, T.L. (2013). Digital fundamentals: A systems approach (pp. 579-582). Upper Saddle River,

New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

Goleniewski, L. (2001). Telecommunications technology fundamentals. Retrieved on March 14,

2017, from http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=24687&seqNum=6

Teves, K. (2014). Asynchronous time division multiplexing [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved on

March 17, 2017 from https://prezi.com/pe20_uewg0k5/asynchronous-time-division-

multiplexing/

Tomasi, W. (2004). Electronic communications system: Fundamentals through advanced (5th ed).

Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.