FUNDAMENTALS OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Telecommunication has been defined as a technology with communication from a distance.

The simplest form of telecommunications take place between two stations. However, it is common for multiple
transmitting and receiving stations to exchange data among themselves.

Historical review

The first attempts to communicate by means of electricity were carried out after the invention of the electric battery by
Alessandro Volta in 1799. This invention allowed the development of the electric telegraph by Samuel Morse in 1837.

In 1864 James C. Maxwell predicted the existence of electromagnetic radiation; his work caused a limited interest
until, in 1887, Heinrich Hertz proved experimentally the existence of electromagnetic waves.

In 1876 Alexander G. Bell patented the invention of telephone establishing in the next year a commercial service that
allowed conversations at distances of a few several hundred miles.

Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated the viability of transmission of radio signals at a distance of about 2 km in 1895; six
years later he managed to establish a connection by radio between England and Canada.

The invention of the vacuum tube by Lee De Forest in 1906 permitted to amplify the signals making the radio
transmissions possible at long distances.

The broadcast system using amplitude modulation (AM) was developed around 1920 and the frequency modulation
(FM) was first utilized in 1936.

Television was developed in the twenties; however, the first commercial service started in England only in 1936.

The expansion of Telecommunications received a significant impulse with the introduction of the digital computer in
1945 (ENIAC), with the invention of the transistor in 1947, the integrated circuit in 1958 and the laser in the same year.

In 1948 Claude E. Shannon published his work on Information Theory establishing the fundamentals (and the limits) of
the digital communications.

The communications via satellite developed since the launch of the first satellite (Sputnik I) in 1957. In 1962 the first
active satellite (Telstar I) made it possible to transmit television programs between Europe and the United States.

In the last three decades there has been a diversification in the types and techniques utilized to transmit information
and the progressive replacement of the analog systems by digital systems. The last decades are characterized by the
growth of personal communications services including voice, data and video. The satellites and the optical fibres make
it possible to transmit huge amounts of information around the world.

The global connectivity of digital networks allowed the development of the internet. The primary precursor network, the
ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s.
The cellular telephone system became the most successful application of wireless networking. The cellular concept
consists of dividing a geographical area into adjacent, non-overlapping cells where the same frequency can be
allocated to different users at spatially-separated locations with negligible interference between them.

A major spin-off of the telecommunications development are the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), namely
GPS (USA), Glonass (Russia), Beidou (China) and Galileo (Europe), that permit precise positioning and navigation
everywhere on the Earth surface at any time. GPS started being developed around 1972 and became operational in
1995.

Elements of a communication system

The goal of a communication system is to send messages, from the transmitter to the receiver through a physical
medium called channel. The message estimate, produced by the receiver is often modified due to the existence of
noise, interference from other transmissions and channel distortion. The communication systems are generically
described by the block diagram of Fig. 1.

The message may be analog, i.e., a signal of continuous variation in the time domain (voice, physical measurement,
etc.) or digital, i.e., a signal with a finite number of values (for instance, a sequence of bits produced by a digital
computer). Depending on the type of message the communication system is called analog or digital.

The general purpose, in the analog systems, is to obtain a replica, with a minimum distortion, that is, it is desired to
maximize the signal-to noise ratio at the receiver output. In the digital systems the usual goal is to minimize the
average rate of detected bits in error.

Transmitter. Converts the message into a waveform (modulated signal) which is convenient for the transmission
through the channel; the process of matching the message to the channel is called modulation. The modulation
involves the change of the amplitude, frequency and/or phase of a sinusoidal signal (carrier) according to the
message. The selected type of modulation depends on several factors, such as, the power and the available
bandwidth, the types of noise and interference that occur in the channel, etc.
For digital systems it is usual the introduction of controlled redundancy in the sequence of transmitted bits (channel
encoding) in order to permit detection and possibly error correction at the receiver.

Channel. Is the physical medium where the modulated signal is propagated. It can be the atmosphere (free space), a
wireline, a coaxial cable, an optical fibre, etc. Regardless of the type of channel the signals are attenuated (by
dissipating energy), distorted (due to a finite bandwidth and non-linearities) and corrupted by interference and noise.
The common forms of noise are the cosmic noise, captured by the antenna, and thermal noise generated at the
receiver’s input level (front-end).
The signals are, sometimes, affected by multipath which is a form of interference provoked by echoes resulting from
the reflection of electromagnetic waves in buildings, mountains, etc. When the distance between transmitter and
receiver antennas is not constant the received signal experiences also a change of carrier frequency due to the
Doppler effect.

Receiver. Is responsible for the message recovery. It carries out a set of inverse operations to those performed at the
transmitter, such as carrier demodulation, detection and decoding (in digital systems).
Phase Modulation PM
It changes the phase of the complex envelope in direct proportion to the message signal.
Telecommunication Networks

What is a telecommunications network?

• A telecommunications network is a collection of terminal nodes, links are connected so as to enable
telecommunication between the terminals.
•The transmission links connect the nodes together.
•The nodes use circuit switching, message switching or packet switching to pass the signal through the correct links
and nodes to reach the correct destination terminal.

The basic purpose of a telecommunications network is to transmit user information in any form to another user of the
network.
These users of public networks, for example, a telephone network, are called subscribers.

The three technologies needed for communication through the network are:
1. Transmission
2. Switching
3. Signaling
Each of these technologies requires specialists for their engineering, operation and maintenance.

Transmission is the process of transporting information between end points of a system or a network. Transmission
systems use four basic media for information transfer from one point to another:
1. Copper cables, such as those used in LANs and telephone subscriber lines;
[Link] fiber cables, such as high-data-rate transmission in telecommunications networks;
[Link] waves, such as cellular telephones and satellite transmission;
[Link]-space optics, such as infrared remote controllers.

Switching
In principle, all telephones could still be connected to each other by cables as they were in the very beginning of the
history of telephony. However, as the number of telephones grew, operators soon noticed that it was necessary to
switch signals from one wire to another. Then only a few cable connections were needed between exchanges
because the number of simultaneously ongoing calls is much smaller than the number of telephones.

Signaling
Signaling is the mechanism that allows network entities (customer premises or network switches) to establish,
maintain, and terminate sessions in a network.

Signaling is carried out with the help of specific signals or messages that indicate to the other end what is requested of
it by this connection.
Some examples of signaling examples on subscriber lines are as follows:
• Off-hook condition: The exchange notices that the subscriber has raised the telephone hook (dc loop is connected)
and gives a dial tone to the subscriber.
• Dial: The subscriber dials digits and they are received by the exchange.
• On-hook condition: The exchange notices that the subscriber has finished the call (subscriber loop is disconnected),
clears the connection, and stops billing.

Answer the following questions;

1. What are the most important advantages of global telecommunications standards?
2. What we mean by: IETF, ISO, OSI, UMTS, GSM, WCDMA, FDD, TDD, FDMA, TDMA, CSMA, FSK, BSK,
PCM, OFDMA, IEEE ?