Switching system
Dr. Md Saiful Islam
Switching system
• Introduction to analog system
• Digital switching systems
space division switching,
blocking probability and multistage switching,
time division switching and
two dimensional switching.
• The communication switching system enables the universal connectivity.
• The universal connectivity is realized when any entity in one part of the
world can communicate with any other entity in another part of the world.
• In many ways telecommunication will acts as a substitute for the
increasingly expensive physical transportation.
• In early days, a very simple exchanges whose control is provided by a human
operator and the elements of the switch assemblies are plugs and sacks.
• With increase in demand of service, human operator exchange was replaced by
the invention of range of electromechanical switching devices.
• Of all the electromechanical switching devices that become available over
the years, the step-by-step switching system invented by Almon B. Strowger in
1892 is still quite popular.
• The next automatic electromechanical switching system was crossber switching.
• First patent for crossbar device was granted in 1915 to J.N.
• Reynolds of wester Electric, USA. In 1919, two Swedish Engineers, Betulander
and Palmgren got patent for crossbar switch. In 1938, AT & T laboratories in US
introduced crossbar-switching system in the field.
• The electromechanical switching systems have been replaced by computer
controlled switching systems referred to as stored program control (SPC).
• In SPC, switching is controlled by software program.
• The use of computers to control the switching led to the designation
‘‘electronic’’ switching system (ESS) or Electronic automatic exchange
(EAX).
• In 1970, first electronic switching system No. 1 ESS or No. 1 EAX was
introduced. Digital electronic switching matrices were first introduced into
the U.S. Public network in 1976 with AT & T’s No. 4 ESS digital toll switch.
Classification of Switching System
Classification of Switching System
• In manual exchanges, a human operator and the elements like switches,
plugs and sacks were used to connect two subscribers.
• Around 1890’s many electromechanical switching devices were introduced.
• Till 1940, different electromechanical switching system were invented, of
which strowger switching system and cross bar switching system were still
popular.
• The later invention of electronic switching system (ESS) which uses stored
program control (SPC) and computer controlled switching systems are
presently dominating the worldwide exchanges.
Simple Human Exchange
• If a subscriber A initiates a call to the subscriber B, A lifts the telephone handset from
the cradle. This action, closes the subscribers loop which includes transmitter and
receiver of the handset.
• The closing circuit causes a dc current (from battery) to flow through line relay and
illuminates the lamp of subscriber A. By seeing the light, the human operator, closes the
speak key and ask the subscriber A ‘‘number please’’.
• By knowing the called subscriber is B, The operator throws ring key B to the ringing
generator. The ringing generator provides a dc current to alert the subscriber B.
• If B does not pickup the phone after reasonable time, the operator reports to A that the call
cannot be connected.
• If B lefts his phone from its cradle, the lamp of B glows, The operator then connect jack A
to jack B and then say to A go ahead please. Both lights of A and B are ‘on’ till their
conversation. If any one or both lamps goes off, the operator will disconnect the jacks.
Limitations of manual exchanges :
• 1. Language dependent. The operation of a human exchange is language dependent
as the subscriber needs to communicate with the operator. In multilingual areas (big
towns, cities and tourist spots). This language dependency poses severe problems.
• 2. Lack of privacy. As a human operator is involving in connecting two subscribers, he
or she may be willing to hear the conversation of two VIP’s or record the message. So in
human exchanges, privacy is not possible.
• 3. Switching delay. Before setting a path between two subscriber, the operator has to
monitor various signalling and if the operator is not active, the delay in switching will be
high normally it takes minutes to setup a call or release a call.
• 4. Limited service. An exchange can provide service only to minimum number of
subscriber. If the subscriber rate increases, overload and thus congestion are not
unexpected. To avoid congestion, more handware should be duplicated and more human
operator is necessary. These all will results in large overhead for the exchange.
THE STROWGER STEP BY STEP SWITCHING SYSTEM
• In general, the strowger switching system consists of subscriber’s line
circuit, line finder & alloter circuit, Group selector and final selector.
• Fig. 4.8 shows the block diagram of strowger switching which explains the
process by which the switching system connects a calling subscriber and
called subscriber.
• Line Finder & Alloter:
• To find a free selector, alloter switch is used for connecting calling subscriber and
selector line.
• when a subscriber lifts his handset, the interrupter mechanism in his
selector hunter gets activated and the wiper steps to find free first selector.
• Once the free first selector is sensed, it is marked busy and the interrupter
mechanism of selector hunter is disabled.
• Now the first selector sends the dial tone to the subscriber and then ready to
receive dialled pulses from the calling subscriber.
• Group Selector:
• Let the called subscriber number is 5345.
• The response of the first selector to these 5 pulses is to advance vertically one
step for each pulse so that it arrives at the 5th row of the two motion selector.
• The wiper on the row 5 of first selector rotates to find the free second selector.
This second stage selector responds to the second dialed digit. Thus, for the
number chosen by us, the wiper moves to the third row of the two motion selector.
• Final selector:
• The final selector takes care of the last two digits.
• As the last two digit being 4 and 5. The dialling of 4 advances the switch to
row 4 and then the dialling of 5, rotates the switch to the 5th column.
• If the called subscriber line is free, then, the path setup is completed.
• Otherwise a busy signal is returned to the caller.
• As the path setup between calling and called subscriber is in response to
the digits dialled, the system is called the step by step system.
Disadvantages of The step by step system
• 1. As this switching involves heavy mechanical displacements, regular maintenance by
the skilled technicians are necessary.
• 2. It is not feasible to select an alternate route for interoffice calls, if all the trunks are
busy as the switching is by step through various selectors.
• 3. Step by step switching is limited to dial pulses. For touchtone telephones, special
devices has to be introduced between line finder and first selector to convert the tones into dial
pulses.
• 4. If calling rate is high, heavy operation is performed by the system and the life time of
the system is less.
• 5. The last two digits of the called line numbers are specifically determined by their
location on the connector. Congestion could arise when the switching system is heavily loaded.
• 6. The capacity of switching system reduces if codes of different numbers are alloted to
various subscribers, such as fire service, police ambulance, fault regorts, directory enquiry,
operator assistance etc. In certain cases, the exchange capacity may be reduced from 10000
to even 6000 customer lines.
• 7. The strowger system can accept only 7 to 9 pulses in 1 second. Hence if we dial fast,
the system can not give correct perfomance.
Principles of crossbar switching
Basic idea
To provide a matrix of (n×m) sets of contacts with only (n + m)
activators or less to select one of the (n×m) sets of contacts.
Crosspoint Switching matrix
Horizontal & Vertical wires
Contact points
Horizontal & Vertical bars
Electromagnets
3×3 Crossbar switching
6×6 Crossbar matrix
Steps for connection
Step1:Energize
horizontal bar
Step2:Energize vertical
bar
• Consider the connection in sequence: A to C and B to E
• Firstly: ‘H’ bar of A is energized, then ‘V’ bar of C.
• Secondly: ‘H’ bar of B is energized, however, crosspoint BC may established which
is not expected.
Crossbar switch configuration
Non-blocking Crossbar configuration
N2 switching elements for N subscribers.
N/2 simultaneous conversations.
Need to find a way to reduce the number of switch contacts for a given
number of subscribers.
1. Briefly explain the Classification of Switching System in
telecommunication.
2. Explain the operation of manual exchanges. What are the limitations of
manual exchanges ?
3. With a block diagram, explain the functions of a step by step switching
system.
4. List the disadvantage of strowger switching system.
5. What are the unique features of cross bar switches ?
6. What is the basic principle of cross bar ? With necessary diagrams explain
the operation.
SPACE DIVISION SWITCHING
• In space division switching, the paths in the circuit are separated from each
other spatially.
• It was originally designed for analog networks, but is used currently in both
digital and analog switching.
• A crosspoint switch is referred to as a space division switch because it
moves a bit stream from one circuit/bus to another. For large group of
outlets, considerable savings in total crosspoints can be achieved if each
inlet can access only a limited number of outlets.
• Such situation is called limited availability.
No. of switch=2NK+k*(N/n)*(N/n)
=2*8*2+2(8/4)*(8/4)
=40
5.5.2. Blocking Probability Evaluation Techniques
• All the switching systems are designed to provide a certain maximum
probability of blocking for the busiest hour of the day.
• It is one of the aspects of the grade of service of the telephone company.
• There are variety of techniques to evaluate the blocking probability of a
switching matrix.
• Depends on the accuracy, required availability, geographical area, priority,
complexity and applicability of different network structures, the techniques
are varying. Here, two techniques are described.
• 1. Lee graphs. It was proposed by C.Y. Lee. It is a most versatile and
straight forward approaches of calculating probabilities with the use of
probability graphs.
• 2. Jacobaeus method. It was presented in 1950 by C. Jacobaeus. It is
more accurate than Lee graph method.
Digital Time Division Switching
• Basic operation. The basic requirement of time division switching is that
the transfer of information arriving at in a time slot of one input link to other
time slot of any one of output link.
• A complete set of pulses, arriving at each active input line is referred to as
a frame. The frame rate is equal to the sample rate of each line.
• A time switch operates by writing data into and reading data out of a single
memory.
• In the process the information in selected time slots is interchanged as
shown in Fig. 5.16.
In TSI operation, inputs are sequentially controlled and outputs are selectively controlled.
The RAM have several memory locations, each size is the same as of single time slot.
TWO DIMENSIONAL DIGITAL SWITCHING
• Combination of the time and space switches leads to a configuration that achieved both
time slot interchange and sample switching across trunks.
• These structures also permit a large number of simultaneous connections to be supported
for a given technology.
• Large digital switches require switching operations in both a space dimension and a time
dimension.
• The space switching and time switching may be accomplished in many ways.
• A two stage combination switch may be organised with time switch as first stage and the
space switch as the second stage or vice versa.
• The resulting configuations are referred as time space (TS) or space time (ST) switches
respectively. Three stage time and space combinations of TST and STS configurations are
more pupular and flexible.
• Very large division switches includes many combinations of time and space switches.
Typical configurations are TSST, TSSSST, and TSTSTSTS. These switches support
40000 lines or more economically.
5.7.2. Time-space (TS) Switching
• This switch consists of only two stages. This structure contains a time
stage T followed by a space stage S as shown in Fig. 5.22. Thus this
structure is referred to as time-space (TS) switch.
• The space array have N inlets and N outlets. For each inlet line, a time slot
interchanger with T slots is introduced.
• Each TSI is provided with a time slot memories (not shown). Similarly a
gate select memory needs to be provided for the space array (not shown).
• The transmission of signals carried out from sender to receiver through
multiplexer input and demultiplexer output. The reverse communication
also similar.
• Let the communication is to take place between subscriber A and B.
• Let A is assigned time slot 2 and line 7 and subscriber B is assigned time
slot 16 and line 11.
• Then the signal moved from time slot 2 to time slot 16 by the time-slot
exchanger and is transfered from line 7 to line 11 in the space array.
• Similarly, the signal originated by B is moved from slot 16 to slot
2 through line 11 to 8.
• Let each time slot interchanger have T slots. If the space array is a N × N,
then the simultaneous connections possible is NT.
• If T = 128 and N = 16, 2048 connections can be supported. This structure
is not free of blocking.
Explain a three stage switching (general) with neat diagram.
Explain the principle of space division switching.
Explain the principle of time division switching.
Draw the STS/ TST structure.