ETE/EEE 423

Principles of Telecommunication
Networks

Dr. Arshad M. Chowdhury

Associate Professor
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
North South University
 Basic Switching System
Interfaces Interfaces

Subscribers Subscribers

Trunks Switching Network Trunks

Service Circuit
Service Circuit

scanning and scanning and

Control
distributor units distributor units

Operator
Console
 Classification of Switching System

Switching System

Manual Automatic

Electromechanical Electronic
(Stored program control – SPC)

Strowger Crossbar
(Step-by-Step)
Combination
Space division Time division
switching switching
Categorizing switching

SPC: Stored program control

Stored Program Control (SPC)
• The strowger’s step by step switching system and crossbar switching
system use electromechanical components for both switching and control
elements.
• In 1965, Bell system installed the first computer controlled switching
system which uses a stored program digital computer for its control
functions.
• The SPC concepts permits the features like abbreviated dialing, call
forwarding, call waiting etc.
• The SPC provides significant advantages to end users.
• The SPC enables easier number changes, automated call tracing message
unit accounting (for billing) etc.
 Stored Program Control (SPC)
• In SPC, a program or a set of instructions are stored in its memory and
executed automatically one by one by the processor.
• Carrying out the exchange control functions through programs stored in the
memory of a computer led to the name stored program control.
• A computer can be programmed to test the conditions of the inputs and last
states and decide on new outputs and states.
• The decisions are expressed as programs which can be rewritten to modify
or extend the functions of control system.
• All switching systems manufactured for use as public switching systems now
use computers and software programming to control the switching of calls.
 SPC Exchange

• Digital telephone exchanges are called SPC (Stored Program

Control) exchanges
• controlled by software, which is stored in a computer or agroup
of computers (microprocessors)
• programs contain the actual intelligence to perform control
Functions software divided into well-defined blocks - modularity
makes the system less complicated to maintain and expand
• Main building blocks
• subscriber interfaces and trunk interfaces
• switch fabric
• switch/call control
 Basic control structure of SPC.

•SPC is the standard feature of all the electronic exchanges

•More than one processors are used for the reliability. (duplicated)

•Types of SPC
Centralized SPC
Distributed SPC
Various levels of Control
Hardware Configuration of Digital Switching
 Centralized SPC
To lines
From lines

Signal
Distributor Scanners

Central
Processor (s)

Secondary storage,
Maintenance memory call recording,
Console program etc.
Can process 10 to 100 calls per second
Single processor and redundant processors
 Redundant Centralized control structure
Resources R1 R2 Rr

Processors
P1 P2 Pp

Function programs F1 F2 Ff

Most centralized SPC system with two processors

1. Standby mode
2. Synchronous duplex mode
3. Load sharing mode
 Exchange
environment

P1 P2

Secondary Storage
Standby mode
– One active processor, the other is standby and activate only failure of
the active processor
– Reconstitute the state of exchange system is essential
• Determine free/busy lines
• Determine the switching paths in the network
– In small exchange, scanning all the status signal is easy
– In large exchange, active processor copies the status of the system
periodically in a secondary storage
– The standby get the latest status after become activate
 Exchange environment

P1 C P2

M1 M2

Synchronous Duplex Mode

– Both process active simultaneously
– One is actually controlling the exchange, the other is synchronized
– Results are compared
– If mismatch occurred, the faulty process is identified and isolated
– In case of comparator failure
1. Continue with both processors (assuming the fault is transient)
2. take out the active processor and continue with the other processor
3. Continue with the active processor but remove the other processor
 Exchange environment

P1 P2

ED
M1 M2

Load Sharing Mode

– Incoming calls are assigned randomly or predetermined fashion to both
processor
– The processors work independently
– Sharing of resources is controlled by exclusion mechanism
– If failure occurred to a processor, the other takes full control
– Usually, two processor got half of the load – but it can be uneven
• For software testing in one processor
– Exhibits better performance in case of traffic overloads
 Real time constraint of Control Functions

Level 3 Event Monitoring

Real time
Level 2 Call processing constraint
increases

Operation, Maintenance
Level 1
and charging

•Real time constraint determined the priority interrupt facility for processing in
Centralized control

•Function with Higher priority event interrupted the lower priority function
•Complete the higher priority function
•Resume the interrupted function
•This can be in a nested fashion
 Distributed SPC

Exchange Environment

EM & DP EM & DP Level 3

CP CP Level 2

Level 1
O & MP O & MP
 Level 3 Processing
Exchange Environment

EM & DP EM & DP Level 3

• Scanning, distribution and marking functionality

• Physically located close to the switching network, junctors and signaling equipments
• Simple, well-defined, specialized operation
• Control mechanism
– Hard-wired control
• Faster but limited flexibility
• Difficult to upgrade to newer system
– Micro-program control
• Control words are generated from micro-program controller
• Horizontal vs. Vertical control word
• Slower in operation but flexible
• Comparatively expensive
• Easier to upgrade of newer services and operations
• Easy maintenance
 Level 2 Processing
Exchange Environment

EM & DP EM & DP Level 3

CP CP Level 2

– Switching processor primarily for call processing

– Real time operation
– Need faster access time to memory
– Faster scheduler operation
– Almost 99.9% availability, fault tolerant, security operation
– Program controlled data transfer as well as direct memory access (DMA )
 Level 1 Processing
Exchange Environment

EM & DP EM & DP Level 3

CP CP Level 2

Level 1
O & MP O & MP

– Handles O&M functionalities

– Software and Hardware administration
– Translation table access (add, delete, modify)
– Supervision of exchange
– Traffic monitoring, Fault detection
– Execution of Diagnostic and testing program
– Man machine interaction
 Remote operation and maintenance

Maintenance
Operator personal

O&M Computer

Exchange 1 Exchange 2
Exchange p

– Larger mainframe processing, handle complex and voluminous

software
– Less real time or concurrency
 Common Functions of the Switching System

The switching office performs the following basic functions irrespective of the system
whether it is a manual or electromechanical or electronic switching system
 Identity (Seize)
 Addressing (identify subscriber)
 Finding route and path setup
 Busy testing (check the status of channel and the called party)
 Supervision (to detect answer and clear down conditions and recording billing)
 Clear down (path disconnection initiated by either party) – clear forward or clear
backward
 Billing
State Transition Diagram of Local Call processing
 Software Architecture
• Primarily two broad categories
– System Software
– Application Software

• Software Architecture for Call Processing

– Real time in nature
– Event driven processing
– Call setup involves many elementary processing actions
– Process: Program in execution
– Many concurrent process by same processors in multi-
programming system
 Process state transition

Running

Time out

Ready Blocked
Event occurs

Running: CPU allocates

Ready: could use the CPU if allocated
Blocked: waiting for some event to occur before it can proceed

• process are in the ordered list according to Priority

•Timer is used to prevent monopolizing the process usage by one process
 Issues related to Event driven processing
• Process control Block (PCB): Repository of key information related
to the process
– Keep current state of the process
– Priority and CPU scheduling parameters
– Save Register values, status of events and I/O resources
– Memory allocation
– Process account (CPU usage time and limits, process ID etc.)

• Context switching: move one process to another

– Save PCB of current process
– Load PCB of next process
– Run new process

• Mutual Exclusion: to access shared data

– One process can be in critical region
– Semaphore is used for synchronization purpose
Basic factors associated with Switching Software

– Complexity and size

– Long working life
• Supporting new services
• Meeting new requirements for network management
• Coping with different application specific to individual
country
• Permitting technological enhancement in system hardware
– Real time operation
– Reliability and availability
– Software portability
 CCITT Standard for software for SPC system
• Z.100: Specification description language (SDL)
– To describe functional specification
– Software tool as well as documentation technique
– Uses top-down approach
– Easy to describe process interaction in a switching system
– SDL diagrams can easily be transformed to other mathematical tool ( Petri net)
for analysis
– Easy to translate SDL to CHILL and vice versa
– Easy to learn , interpret and use
• Z.200: CCITT High level language (CHILL)
– Suitable for coding SPC modules for
– Call handling
– Test and maintenance
– Operating System
– On-line and off-line support
– Man Machine language translation
– Testing
 CCITT Standard for software for SPC system

• Z.3xx: Man-machine language (MML)

– Operation
– Maintenance
– Installation
– Testing
 Application Software
• Used for : Call processing, Administrative, Maintenance
• The application software are divided into modules
– Modules are assigned to specific task
• Data tables and interfaces are used to share information among
modules
• Parametric data are stored in tables or files
– Terminal circuit connection file
• Associated distributor address
• Associated scanner address
• Switching network address
• Physical location address
– Switching network configuration file
• Connected subscriber lines
• Trunks toward other exchanges
• Rules for digit translation and routing