MBEYA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOG

DEPARTMENT: ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

COURSE: ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

MODULE: TELECOMMUNICATION SWITCHING PRINCIPLES.

s/n NAMES CA NUMBER
1 YUSUPH M. MBURI CA/ODT/19/4110
2 ROGERS KUGURU CA/ODT/19/0657
3 RENACY O. MUYANDA CA/ODT/19/0664
4 GERALD E. ATUBONIKE CA/ODT/19/0653
5 RAMADHAN MUSSA CA/ODT/19/0663
6 FURAHA P. MIKINA CA/ODT/19/5300
7 PHOCAS SEBASTIAN CA/ODT/19/0668
8 PETER L. MKINGA CA/ODT/19/0661
9 MICHAEL A. MWAKASEKELE CA/ODT/19/0665
10 LUSTROUS L. LAMECK CA/ODT/19/0658
11 LUCAS PAUL CA/ODT/19/4111
12 LAURENT W. MWALINDU CA/ODT/19/0666
13 JEROME KOMBA CA/ODT/19/0656
14 HASANI Y. MKINDI CA/ODT/19/4926
 INTRODUCTION TO ATM
ATM stands for Asynchronous Transfer Mode.
ATM is a high Performance, cell oriented switching and multiplexing
technology that utilizes fixed length packets to carry different types of
traffic.
ATM is the next generation of networking technology to be used on
the information superhighway. ATM is well suited for bursty traffic, and
allows communications between devices that operate at different speeds.
This Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a technology that has its
history in the development of broadband ISDN in the 1970s and 1980s.
Technically, it can be viewed as an evolution of packet switching.
ATM is a telecommunications concept defined by ANSI and ITU
committees for the transport of a broad range of user information.
 ADVANTAGES OF ATM
The most important advantages or benefits of the ATM are:

1. A much wider array of information can be transmitted using ATM

technology, for example, voice, data, images, CATV scans, MRI images
and video conferencing.

2. ATM delivers bandwidth on demand, is not dependent on applications

and works at a data rate from 1.5 Mbps to 2 Gbps.

3. All types of networking, from LANs to WANs and from backbone to

desktop can be integrated by ATM technology.
 ADVANTAGE CONT..
4. The service is connection oriented, with data transferred over a virtual circuit.

5. ATM switches are statistical multiplexing.

6. Higher quality of service.

7. Wider array of information can be handled.

8. Accepts variety of transmission media such as optical fiber or twisted pair

cable.

9. Works with current LAN and WAN technologies and supports current
protocols. such as TCP/IP.
 CONCEPTS OF ATM
Connection oriented service. In connected oriented service, over a virtual
circuit, the data stream from origin to destination follows the same path. Virtual
circuit (a type of packet switching) operate on the same concept as packet
switching, but the routing of packet is specified before transmission.

Data from different connections is distinguished by means of virtual path

identifier (VPI) and virtual channel identifier (VCI). By virtual circuit, cells in the
same connection reach the destination in the order they are sent. It eliminates the
need for sequencing numbers and buffering packets. VPI and VCI are called
connection identifiers.
 ATM SERVICES
ATM forum specifies five types of services. They are:
1. Constant bit rate (CBR). This is used for emulating circuit switching. The cell rate
is constant with time. Telephone traffic, videoconferencing and television are the examples
that use CBR.
2. Variable bit rate–non real time (VBR–NRT). This service allows users to send
traffic at a rate that varies with time depending on the availability of user information.
Multimedia email is an example of VBR–NRT.
3. Variable bit rate–real time (VBR–RT). This service is similar to VBR–NRT, but it is
designed for applications that are sensitive to cell delay variation. Examples for real time
VBR are voice with speech activity detection (SAD) and interactive compressed video.
4. Available bit rate (ABR). This service provides rate based flow control and is aimed
at data traffic such as file transfer and e-mail.
5. Unspecified bit rate (UBR). This class is widely used today for TCP/IP.
 TYPES OF CONNECTION
Two types of connection:

1. Permanent virtual connection (PVC). PVC is a connection that is setup and

taken down manually by a network manager. A set of network switches between

the ATM source and destination are programmed with predefined values for

VCI/VPI.

2. Switched virtual circuit (SVC). SVC is a connection that is setup

automatically by a signaling protocol. SVC is more widely used because it does

not require manual setup, but it is not reliable.

 ATM SWITCH OPERATION
ATM switch operation : ATM switch process cells at an extremly high
rate or speed.
ATM SWITCH OPERATION CONT…
Fig above shows the ATM switch with 3 ports. The cells enter the
switch from port 1 and go out from the switch to ports 2 and 3
according to the routing table. The routing table is shown in table below
 OPERATION CONT..
The ATM switch should have enough capacity to store
incoming calls and the routing table. It should have 16 to 32 input and
output ports and supports all AAL (ATM Adaptation layer).

It should acts as support for congestion control. The switch

should support cell switching at a rate of at least 1 million cells per sec.
 OPERATION CONT…
The ATM switch operation is given below by step by step procedure.

1. The switch examines the VPI/VCI of the incoming cell to determine the output
port to which the cell should be forwarded.

2. The ATM switch modifies the VPI/VCI fields to new value for the output port.

3. The Header error control (HEC) is used for error detection and correction in the
header field of each cell. If the HEC can not correct the error, the ATM switch
will discard the cell.

4. The ATM switch can modify the routable table using its control unit.
 TRAFFIC CONGESTION
An ATM switch involved with two types of blocking of traffic congestion.

1. Fabric blocking. It occurs when the fabric capacity of a switch is less

than the sum of its input data rate. In this case the switch must drop some
of the cells. Some ATM switches are limited to 16 or 32 OC-3 input ports.

2. Head of the line blocking. It occurs when an output port is congested and
a cell is waiting in the input port. The switch must drop some of the cells
in the output port. Some switches randomly discard the cells, and all
stations must retransmit all the cells.
 ATM SWITCH ARCHITECTURE
• shows the general architecture of an ATM switch. The ATM switch uses
statistical packet multiplexing.
 ATM SWITCH ARCHITECTURE CONT..
SDM dynamically allocates bandwidth to the active input
channels, resulting in very efficient bandwidth utilization. In SDM, an
idle channel does not receive any time allocation. SDM uses a store and
forward mechanism in order to detect and correct error from incoming
packets. SDM will not allocate a time slot to any idle input.
The control processor is used to control the input/output
buffers and update the routing table of the switch. The switch must be
capable of processing atleast one billion cells per second and supports at
least one million cells per second. The buffers are used to store the
incoming data cell and the routing table.
 ATM CELL FORMAT
ATM uses VLSI technology to segment data to the cell at high speeds.
Each cell consists of 53 bytes, in which there are a 5 byte header and a
48 byte payload.
 ATM CELL FORMAT CONT…
The ATM protocol is not influenced by the actual configuration
of the payload. The data is segmented into 48 bytes sizes and packaged
into ATM cells. These cells can be multiplexed with other payload cells
and transported through ATM routers and delivered to an end point
network, where there are demultiplexed and reassembled into the
original payload format and placed on to the end point network to be
eventually routed to the user terminal or node.
The fixed cell size ensures that time critical information such as
voice or video is not adversely affected by long data frames or packets.
 ATM NETWORK INTERFACE
Figure below illustrates a typical ATM network. It consists of switches
and end users with necessary interfaces.
 ATM SWITCHES INTERFACES
ATM switches offer two types of interfaces. They are:
1. Switch to Switch Interface or Network to Network Interface (NNI). It is
an interface between nodes within the network or between different sub
network.
2. Switch to User Interface or User to Network Interface (UNI). UNI is the
standard technical specification allowing ATM customer equipment (CEQ)
from various manufacturers to communicate over a network provided by
yet another manufacturer. It is the interface employed between ATM
customer equipment and either ATM switch.
Another interface called ATM inter network interface (INI) used
for [Link] is also used for operational and administrative
boundaries between interconnected networks. It is based upon NNI but
include more features for ensuring security, control and proper
administration of inter-carrier connections.
 ATM LAYERING
shows an ATM end point operational model and an ATM switch
operational model.
 ATM LAYERING
ATM end point operational model
The ATM end point operational model consists of three layers
1. ATM adaptation layer (AAL)
2. ATM layer and
3. Physical layer
 ATM LAYERING C0NT……
[Link] layer.
The physical layers are divided into two sublayers. They are Physical Medium
Dependent (PMD) layer and the transmission convergence (TC) layer.
The DMP sublayer provides bit transmission, coding, electrical and optical
conversion and bit timing.

The functions of the TC sublayer are as follows:

I. Extracting the cell from physical layer
II. Scrambling the cell before transmission and descrambling the cell after
transmission.
 ATM LAYERING CONT……
After receiving a cell from physical layer, TC calculate the HEC
header and compares with the cell‘s HEC header. The results of the comparison
are used for error correction in the cell header. If the error can not be corrected,
the cell will be discarded.
ATM layer. There is no sublayers. It performs the following function.
1. It adds cell header and remove cell header.
2. The VPI/VCI values of incoming cell is translated to a new VPI/VCI value
for the outgoing cell.
3. Generic flow control—to determine the destination of the receiving cell.
4. Multiplexes and demultiplexes cell.
 ATM ADAPTATION LAYER(AAL)
The AAL converts the large Service Data Unit (SDU) data packet of
the upper layer to 48 bytes for the ATM cell pay load. The AAL is divided
into two sublayers. They are convergence sublayer (CS) and the
segmentation and Reassembly sublayer (SAR) as shown below
 ATM ADAPTATION LAYER(AAL)
CONT…
ATM can be used for various applications. Therefore different
types of AALs are needed to provide service to upper layer applications.
The AALs are divided into four classes of traffic (class A, class
B, class C and class D)
Also AAL is divided into four types of AAL protocol (Type1,
Type 2, Type 3/4 and Type 5). Table 11.5 shows the service
classification of ATM AAL.
SERVICE CLASSIFICATION OF ATM
TABLE
 ATM ADAPTATION
LAYER(AAL)CONT…
The CS converts the information stream into four types of packet
streams called AAL Type 1, Type 2, Type 3/4 and Type 5. The packet
formats should match the five types of ATM services already described.
CS tasks are likely to be application dependent. Hence CS is further
subdivided into the upper, service specific CS (SSCS) and the lower
common part SS (CPCS).
SAR tasks are quite standard, depending only on traffic type. The
SAR segments the SDU received from CS and add necessary overhead
and convert them into 48 byte cells or protocol data units (PDU).
 TYPES OF ADAPTATION LAYER
The types of ATM adaptation layers are AAL type 1 or AAL 1,
AAL type 2 or AAL 2, AAL type 3/4 or AAL 3/4 and AAL type 5 or
AAL 5. Fig. 11.34 shows the cell format of all these types.
AAL 1 It is designed to carry class A traffic. The field SN (4 bits) is
used as cell sequence number to detect any missing cell or disordered
cell. The sequence number protection field (SNP) is 4 bit and used for
error detection on an SN field using a CRC polynomial X3 + X2 + 1.
The SAR sublayer takes the (periodic) packet stream generated by the
CS sublayer, segments it into 47 byte SDU, SDU, and prepends to
each SDU, a 4 bit sequence number (SN) protected by a 4 bit SNP
field.
ADAPTATION LAYER BLOCK
DIAGRAM
 TYPES OF ADAPTATION LAYER
AAL 2. It is designed to carry class B traffic. The 8 bit start field (SF)
includes a 6 bit offset field (OSF), which indicates the number of bytes
between the start field and the payload or between the start field. The 24 bit
Header (H) includes the Length indicator (LI) for variable length payload.
AAL 3/4. It is started as two separate adaptation layers (AAL 3 and AAL
4). The specification of two AAL’s merged and the newly formed type is
called AAL 3/4. AAL 3/4 is designed to take variable length frames up to 64
kbytes and segment them into cells. The 2-bit ST or segment type is set as
follows. ST = 10 for BOM, ST = 00 for COM, ST = 01 for EOM and ST =
11, if the packet fits in side a single cell. The 10 bit multiplexing identifier
(MID) is used to distinguish among the cells originating from different data
grams.
 BROADBAND ISDN(B-ISDN)
B-ISDN provides the needs (High speed and large data handling) of the
next generation technology.
 B-ISDN is a digital service with speed above 1.544 Mbps. The original
ISDN is called narrow band ISDN (N-ISDN). B-ISDN uses fiber at all
levels of telecommunications.
BISDN provides two types of services.
a) They are interactive (conversational or messaging or retrieval). The
interactive service is bidirectional.
b) The distributive services are unidirectional (with user control or
without user control).
 FORMS OF B-ISDN
Frame relay service. Frame relay is considered to be a B-ISDN
service. Frame relay is a packet switching protocol service offered by
telephone corporations to replace the X-25 protocol. It is a WAN network.
Switched Multimegabit Digital Service (SMDS). SMDS is a digital
service that provides a high speed digital path. The transport speed of
SMDS is usually 155 Mbps.
• ATM. The transport speed of most ATM applications are 155 Mbps. B-
ISDN uses the same functional groupings of N-ISDN. But named as B-
NT1, B-NT2,B-TE1, B-TE2 and B-TA. B-ISDN uses the same R, S, T
and U reference points. However BISDN uses three different access
methods to satisfy the user needs. They are symmetrical 155.52 Mbps,
asymmetrical 155.520 Mbps and symmetrical 622.080 Mbps.
 FORMS OF B-ISDN CONT..
 AAL 5. It is an efficient way to transfer information in ATM. The
IP packet up to 64 Kbytes is packaged into a CS packet that contains a
length indicator and a 32 bit CRC calculated over the complete CS
packet with the generator. AAL 5 provides services similar to those
AAL 3/4, but uses fewer control fields.