Telephony

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Telephony (/t?'l?f?ni/ t?-LEF-?-nee) is the field of technology involving the
development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the
purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties.
The history of telephony is intimately linked to the invention and development of
the telephone.

Telephony is commonly referred to as the construction or operation of telephones

and telephonic systems and as a system of telecommunications in which telephonic
equipment is employed in the transmission of speech or other sound between points,
with or without the use of wires.[1] The term is also used frequently to refer to
computer hardware, software, and computer network systems, that perform functions
traditionally performed by telephone equipment. In this context the technology is
specifically referred to as Internet telephony, or voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP).

Contents [hide]
1 Overview
2 Digital telephony
2.1 Milestones in digital telephony
3 IP telephony
4 Social impact research
5 See also
6 References
Overview[edit]
The first telephones were connected directly in pairs. Each user had a separate
telephone wired to the locations he might wish to reach. This quickly became
inconvenient and unmanageable when people wanted to communicate with more than a
few people. The inventions of the telephone exchange provided the solution for
establishing telephone connections with any other telephone in service in the local
area. Each telephone was connected to the exchange via one wire pair, the local
loop. Nearby exchanges in other service areas were connected with trunk lines and
long distance service could be established by relaying the calls through multiple
exchanges.

Initially the switchboards were manually operated by an attendant, a switchboard

operator. When a customer cranked a handle on the telephone, it turned on an
indicator on the board in front of the operator who would plug the operator headset
into that jack and offer service. The caller had to ask for the called party by
name, later by number, and the operator connected one end of a circuit into the
called party jack to alert them. If the called station answered the operator
disconnected their headset and completed the station-to-station circuit. Trunk
calls were made with the assistance of other operators at other exchangers in the
network.

In modern times, most telephones are plugged into telephone jacks. The jacks are
connected by inside wiring to a drop wire which connects the building to a cable.
Cables usually bring a large number of drop wires from all over a district access
network to one wire center or telephone exchange. When a telephone user wants to
make a telephone call, equipment at the exchange examines the dialed telephone
number and connects that telephone line to another in the same wire center, or to a
trunk to a distant exchange. Most of the exchanges in the world are interconnected
through a system of larger switching systems, forming the public switched telephone
network (PSTN).

After the middle of the 20th century, fax and data became important secondary users
of the network created to carry voices, and late in the century, parts of the
network were upgraded with ISDN and DSL to improve handling of such traffic.

Today, telephony uses digital technology (digital telephony) in the provisioning of

telephone services and systems. Telephone calls can be provided digitally, but may
be restricted to cases in which the last mile is digital, or where the conversion
between digital and analog signals takes place inside the telephone. This
advancement has reduced costs in communication, and improved the quality of voice
services. The first implementation of this, ISDN, permitted all data transport from
end-to-end speedily over telephone lines. This service was later made much less
important due to the ability to provide digital services based on the IP protocol.

Since the advent of personal computer technology in the 1980s, computer telephony
integration (CTI) has progressively provided more sophisticated telephony services,
initiated and controlled by the computer, such as making and receiving voice, fax,
and data calls with telephone directory services and caller identification. The
integration of telephony software and computer systems is a major development in
the evolution of the automated office. The term is used in describing the
computerized services of call centers, such as those that direct your phone call to
the right department at a business you're calling. It's also sometimes used to
describe the ability to use your personal computer to initiate and manage phone
calls (in which case you can think of your computer as your personal call center).
[2] CTI is not a new concept and has been used in the past in large telephone
networks, but only dedicated call centers could justify the costs of the required
equipment installation. Primary telephone service providers are offering
information services such as automatic number identification, which is a telephone
service architecture that separates CTI services from call switching and will make
it easier to add new services. Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) on a
scale is wide enough for its implementation to bring real value to business or
residential telephone usage. A new generation of applications (middleware) is being
developed as a result of standardization and availability of low cost computer
telephony links.

Digital telephony[edit]
Starting with the introduction of the transistor, invented in 1947 by Bell
Laboratories, to amplification and switching circuits in the 1950s, and through
development of computer-based electronic switching systems, the public switched
telephone network (PSTN) has gradually evolved towards automation and digitization
of signaling and audio transmissions.

Digital telephony is the use of digital electronics in the operation and

provisioning of telephony systems and services. Since the 1960s a digital core
network has replaced the traditional analog transmission and signaling systems, and
much of the access network has also been digitized.

Digital telephony has dramatically improved the capacity, quality, and cost of the
network. End-to-end analog telephone networks were first modified in the early
1960s by upgrading transmission networks with Digital Signal 1 (DS1/T1) carrier
systems, designed to support the basic 3 kHz voice channel by sampling the
bandwidth-limited analog voice signal and encoding using PCM. While digitization
allows wideband voice on the same channel, the improved quality of a wider analog
voice channel did not find a large market in the PSTN.

Later transmission methods such as SONET and fiber optic transmission further
advanced digital transmission. Although analog carrier systems existed that
multiplexed multiple analog voice channels onto a single transmission medium,
digital transmission allowed lower cost and more channels multiplexed on the
transmission medium. Today the end instrument often remains analog but the analog
signals are typically converted to digital signals at the serving area interface
(SAI), central office (CO), or other aggregation point. Digital loop carriers (DLC)
place the digital network ever closer to the customer premises, relegating the
analog local loop to legacy status.

Milestones in digital telephony[edit]

early experiments with pulse code modulation in telephony
the 8-bit, 8 kHz standard is developed; Nyquist's theorem and the standard 3.5 kHz
telephony bandwidth
DS0 as the basic digital telephony bitstream standard
non-linear quantization: A-law vs. -law, and transcoding between the two
bit error rate and intelligibility
first practical digital telephone systems put into service
the U.S. T-carrier system and the European E-carrier system developed to carry
digital telephony
introduction of space-time switching in fully digital electronic switching systems
replacement of tone signaling with digital signaling for trunks
in-band signaling vs. out-of-band signaling
the problem of bit-robbing
development of SS7
emergence of fiber optic networking allows greater reliability and call capacity
transition from plesiochronous transmission to synchronous systems like SONET/SDH
optical self-healing ring networks further increase reliability
digital/optical systems revolutionize international long-distance networks,
particularly undersea cables
digital telephone exchanges eliminate moving parts, make exchange equipment much
smaller and more reliable
separation of exchange and concentrator functions
roll-out of digital systems throughout the PSTN
provision of intelligent network services
digital speech coding and compression
speech compression on international digital trunks
phone tapping in the digital environment
introduction of digital mobile telephony, specialized compression algorithms for
high bit error rates
direct digital termination to customers via ISDN; PRI catches on, BRI mostly does
not, except in Germany
the effects of digital telephony, and digital termination at the ISP, on modem
performance
voice over IP as a carrier strategy
emergence of ADSL leads to voice over IP becoming a consumer product, and the slow
demise of dial-up Internet access
expected convergence of VoIP, mobile telephony, etc.
flattening of telephony tariffs, increasing moves towards flat rate pricing as the
marginal cost of telephony drops further and further.
IP telephony[edit]
Main article: Voice over IP

A commercial IP telephone, with keypad, control keys, and screen functions to

perform configuration and user features.
The field of technology available for telephony been broadened with the advent of
new communication technologies. Telephony now included the technologies of Internet
services and mobile communication, including video conferencing.

The new technologies based on Internet Protocol (IP) concepts are often referred to
separately as voice over IP (VoIP) telephony, also commonly referred to as IP
telephony or Internet telephony. Unlike traditional phone service, IP telephony
service is relatively unregulated by government. In the United States, the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) regulates phone-to-phone connections, but says they
do not plan to regulate connections between a phone user and an IP telephony
service provider.[citation needed]

A specialization of digital telephony, Internet Protocol (IP) telephony involves

the application of digital networking technology that was the foundation to the
Internet to create, transmit, and receive telecommunications sessions over computer
networks. Internet telephony is commonly known as voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP), reflecting the principle, but it has been referred with many other terms.
VoIP has proven to be a disruptive technology that is rapidly replacing traditional
telephone infrastructure technologies. As of January 2005, up to 10% of telephone
subscribers in Japan and South Korea have switched to this digital telephone
service. A January 2005 Newsweek article suggested that Internet telephony may be
"the next big thing".[3] As of 2006, many VoIP companies offer service to consumers
and businesses.[needs update]

IP telephony uses an Internet connection and hardware IP phones, analog telephone

adapters, or softphone computer applications to transmit conversations encoded as
data packets. In addition to replacing plain old telephone service (POTS), IP
telephony services compete with mobile phone services by offering free or lower
cost connections via WiFi hotspots. VoIP is also used on private networks which may
or may not have a connection to the global telephone network.

Fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants 19972007

Social impact research[edit]
Direct person-to-person communication includes non-verbal cues expressed in facial
and other bodily articulation, that cannot be transmitted in traditional voice
telephony. Video telephony restores such interactions to varying degrees. Social
Context Cues Theory is a model to measure the success of different types of
communication in maintaining the non-verbal cues present in face-to-face
interactions. The research examines many different cues, such as the physical
context, different facial expressions, body movements, tone of voice, touch and
smell.

Various communication cues are lost with the usage of the telephone. The
communicating parties are not able to identify the body movements, and lack touch
and smell. Although this diminished ability to identify social cues is well known,
Wiesenfeld, Raghuram, and Garud point out that there is a value and efficiency to
the type of communication for different tasks.[citation needed] They examine work
places in which different types of communication, such as the telephone, are more
useful than face-to-face interaction.

The expansion of communication to mobile telephone service has created a different

filter of the social cues than the land-line telephone. The use of instant
messaging, such as texting, on mobile telephones has created a sense of community.
[citation needed] In The Social Construction of Mobile Telephony it is suggested
that each phone call and text message is more than an attempt to converse. Instead,
it is a gesture which maintains the social network between family and friends.
Although there is a loss of certain social cues through telephones, mobile phones
bring new forms of expression of different cues that are understood by different
audiences. New language additives attempt to compensate for the inherent lack of
non-physical interaction.

Another social theory supported through telephony is the Media Dependency Theory.
This theory concludes that people use media or a resource to attain certain goals.
This theory states that there is a link between the media, audience, and the large
social system.[4] Telephones, depending on the person, help attain certain goals
like accessing information, keeping in contact with others, sending quick
communication, entertainment, etc.

See also[edit]
Look up telephony in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Telecommunications portal
List of telephony terminology
History of the telephone
Invention of the telephone
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Dictionary.com Telephony Definition
Jump up ^ What is CTI? TechTarget
Jump up ^ Sheridan, Barrett. "Newsweek - National News, World News, Health,
Technology, Entertainment and more... - Newsweek.com". MSNBC. Archived from the
original on January 18, 2005. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
Jump up ^ http://communicationtheory.org/media-dependency-theory/
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