Wire Communication

Basic Telephone Signaling

Prepared By: ABUAN, RAMIL L.

Signaling
Signaling: In telecommunication, signaling has the following meanings: the use of signals for controlling communications the information exchange concerning the establishment and control of a telecommunication circuit and the management of the network, in contrast to user information transfer the sending of a signal from the transmitting end of a telecommunication circuit to inform a user at the receiving end that a message is to be sent. Signaling systems can be classified according to their principal properties, some of which are described below:

Signaling
A major component of any telephone system is signaling, in which electric pulses or audible tones are used for alerting (requesting service), addressing (e.g., dialing the called partys number at the subscriber set), supervision (monitoring idle lines), and information (providing dial tones, busy signals, and recordings). In general, signaling may occur either within the subscriber loop that is, within the circuit between individual telephone instrument and the local office or in circuits between offices.

Signaling
The signaling techniques required to control voice transmission can be placed into one of three categories; 1. Supervision 2. Addressing 3. or Alerting Supervision involves the detection of changes to the status of a loop or trunk. Once these changes are detected, the supervisory circuit generates a predetermined response. Example: A circuit (loop) can close to connect a call.

Signaling
Addressing involves passing dialed digits (pulsed or tone) to a private branck exchange (PBX) or central office (CO).
These dialed digits provide the switch with a connection path to another phone or customer premises equipment (CPE).

Alerting provides audible tones to the user, which indicate certain conditions such as an incoming call or a busy phone. A phone call cannot take place without all of these signaling techniques.

Signaling
Basic Supervision Signaling: 1. Loop Start 2. Ground Start A loop start is a supervisory signal given by a telephone or PBX in response to the completion of the loop circuit, commonly referred to as off-hook. When idle, or on-hook, the loop is at 48V DC (providing by the CO). When telephone or device wishes to use the line, it causes current to flow by closing the loop (going off-hook), and this signals the CO to provide dial tone on the line and to listen for DTMF digits. When the loop is opened and current stops flowing, the subscribers equipment is saying that it has finished using the line; the CO line now makes the line idle again.

Loop Start
When the CO needs to ring the customer, it superimposes an AC signal onto the line at 20Hz. This signal is traditionally 90V, but most devices are tolerant of signals between 60V and 100V.

The power to ring phones was historically supplied by a generator on the customers and operators telephones.
Loop start signaling is normally used by POTS lines and key systems. Basic Call Progress (with loop-start) The progress of a telephone call signaling in place can be divided into these phases: 1. On-hook 2. Off-hook 3. Dialing 4. Switching 5. Ringing 6. Talking

Loop Start

When the handset rests on the cradle, the circuit is on-hook. In other words, before a phone call is initiated, the telephone set is in a ready condition waiting for a caller to pick up its handset. This state is called on-hook. In this state, the 48-VDC circuit from the telephone set to the CO switch is open. The CO switch contains the power supply for this DC circuit. The power supply located at the CO switch prevents a loss of telephone service when the power goes out at the location of the telephone set. Only the ringer is active when the telephone is in this position.

Loop Start
The off-hook phase occurs when the telephone customer decides to make a phone call and lifts the handset from the telephone cradle. The switch hook closes the loop between the CO switch and the telephone set and allows current to flow. The CO switch detects this current flow and transmits a dial tone (350- and 440-hertz [Hz] tones played continuously) to the telephone set. This dial tone signals the customer can begin to dial. There is no guarantee that the customer hears a dial tone right away. If all the circuits are used, the customer could have to wait for a dial tone. The access capacity of the CO switch used determines how soon a dial tone is sent to the caller phone. The CO switch generates a dial tone only after the switch has reserved registers to store the incoming address. Therefore, the customer cannot dial until a dial tone is received. If there is no dial tone, then the registers are not available.

Loop Start

The dialing phase allows the customer to enter a phone number (address) of a telephone at another location. The customer enters this number with either a rotary phone that generates pulses or a touch-tone (push-button) phone that generates tones. These telephones use two different types of address signaling in order to notify the telephone company where a subscriber calls: Dual tone multifrequency (DTMF) dialing and Pulse dialing.
These pulses or tones are transmitted to the CO switch across a two-wire twisted-pair cable (tip and ring lines).

Loop Start

In the switching phase, the CO switch translates the pulses or tones into a port address that connects to the telephone set of the called party. This connection could go directly to the requested telephone set (for local calls) or go through another switch or several switches (for long-distance calls) before it reaches its final destination.

Loop Start

Once the CO switch connects to the called line, the swtich sends a 20-Hz 90V signal to this line. This signal rings the phone of the called party. While ringing the phone of the called party, the CO switch sends an audible ring-back tone to the caller. This ring-back lets the caller know that ringing occurs at the called party. The CO switch transmits 440 and 480 tones to the caller phone in order to generate a ring-back. These tones are played for a specific on time and off time. If the called party phone is busy, the CO switch sends a busy signal to the caller. This busy signal consists of 480- and 620-Hz tones.

Loop Start

In the talking phase, the called party hears the phone ringing and decides to answer. As soon as the called party lifts the handset, an off-hook phase starts again, this time on the opposite end of the network. The local loop is closed on the called party side, so current starts to flow to the CO switch. This switch detects current flow and completes the voice connection back to the calling party phone. Now, voice communication can start between both ends of this connection.

Tones
Table 1 shows a summary of alerting tones that could be generated by the CO switch during a phone call.

Tones
The progress tones in Table 1 are for North American phone systems. International phone systems can have a totally different set of progress tones. Everyone must be familiar with most of these call progress tones. A Dial tone indicates that the telephone company is ready to receive digits from the user telephone. A Busy tone indicates that a call cannot be completed because the telephone at the remote end is already in use. A Ring-Back (normal or PBX) tone indicates that the telephone company is attempting to complete a call on behalf of a subscriber. A Congestion progress tone is used between switches to indicate that congestion in the long distance telephone network currently prevents a telephone call from being progressed. A Reorder tone indicates that all the local telephone circuits are busy, and thus prevents a telephone call from being processed.

Tones
A Receiver off-hook tone is the loud ringing that indicates the receiver of a phone is left off-hook for an extended period of time. A No such number tone indicates that the number dialed cannot be found in the routing table of a switch.

Ground Start
In telephony, a ground start or GST is a method of signaling from a terminal or subscriber local loop to a telephone exchange, in which method a cable pair is temporarily grounded to request dial tone. Most middle 20th-century American payphones used "coin first" ground start lines, with the starting ground passing through the coin itself. Local telephone companies typically provide two types of dial tone switched trunks ground start and loop start.

PBXs work best on ground start trunks because those trunks can give them an on hook signal allowing for timely clearing. Many will work albeit intermittently on both types.

Ground Start
Normal single line phones and key systems typically work on loop start lines. The issue with loop start lines is that the PBX and central office can seize the line simultaneously; since neither gets the response it is expecting, the call is not initiated. The resulting condition is called glare or also known as Call collision.

In an idle circuit, the central office supplies -48V (nominally) on the Ring side and open on the Tip.
1. A ground start PBX initiates an outgoing trunk seizure on an idle circuit by connecting of the Ring lead to ground (maximum local resistance of 550 ohms). 2. The central office senses this condition and grounds the Tip lead. 3. When the PBX senses this, it goes off hook, then removes the ground on Ring. 4. The central office sends dial tone and the rest of the call proceeds normally.

Ground Start
In ground start signaling, the central office initiates a call by grounding Tip and putting the ringing signal on the line. The PBX has 100ms to sense this condition.
The PBX goes off hook; if it had been trying to seize the line by grounding Ring, it releases Ring from ground and the call proceeds normally.

At the end of either an incoming or outgoing call, the PBX initiates disconnect by going on hook, or the central office initiates disconnect by opening Tip. When the other end detects the loss of loop current, it also goes on hook and the call is clears normally.

A PBX user must be careful to order the correct type of trunk line from the local phone company and correctly install the telephone system at the PBX end so that they match. Line equipment in most 20th-century central office switches had to be specially rewired to create a ground start DDCO line.

Ground Start
Ground-start signaling is another supervisory signaling technique, like loop-start, that provides a way to indicate on-hook and off-hook conditions in a voice network. Ground-start signaling is used primarily in switch-to-switch connections. The main difference between ground-start and loop-start signaling is that ground-start requires ground detection to occur in both ends of a connection before the tip and ring loop can be closed. Although loop-start signaling works when you use your telephone at home, groundstart signaling is preferable when there are high-volume trunks involved at telephone switching centers. Because ground-start signaling uses a request and/or confirm switch at both ends of the interface, it is preferable over FXOs and other signaling methods on high-usage trunks.