Chapter 1

Introduction to switching
Lecture 1
Introduction to Switching
 The ITU-T defines switching as:
• "the establishing, on demand, of an individual connection from a
desired inlet to a desired outlet within a set of inlets and outlets for
as long as is required for the transfer of information".
Telecommunication Networks
 Definition:
 Transmission and switching infrastructure with the objective to provide
telecommunication services

 Classification according to different criteria:

 Geographical coverage (LAN, MAN, WAN)
 Function: Access Networks, Backbone/Core Networks
 Business models: Private networks / public networks
 Availability (with regard to failures, redundancy,...)
 Bandwidth
 Quality of Service (QoS)

 Transmission resources: 1) transport, 2) switching

 Communication mode:
 How is the communication equipment interconnected?
(PHY) How are data paths set-up ? (Logical)
 Switched communication networks

 Basic function:
 A Sender of data (Source) selects a Destination for the data and .
 Network provides a communication path between the two performing the
necessary switching

 No direct connection between end points

 Need to forward information to intended node(s)

 this is done by special intermediate nodes (e.g., routers, switches)
running routing protocols
 examples: WANs (Telephony Network, Internet)
Introduction to Switching
Communication networks can be classified based
on the way in which the nodes exchange information:
Basic properties of switching

 Switching takes place in specialized network nodes

 Switching implies directing of information flows in

communications networks based on known rules

 Data switched on bit, octet, frame or packet level

 Size of a switched data unit is variable or fixed

The need for switching

Why Switching?
 Switches allow reduction in overall network cost by reducing
number and/or cost of transmission links required to enable a
given user population to communicate
 Introduction to Switching - Transport

 Switching systems are

central components in
communications networks

 Limited number of physical connections implies

need for sharing of transport resources, which means
 better utilization of transport capacity
 use of switching
Heterogeneity by switching

 Switching systems allow heterogeneity among

terminals
 terminals of different processing and transmission speeds
supported
 terminals may implement different sets of functionality

 Also allow heterogeneity among transmission links by

providing a variety of interface types
 data rates can vary
 different link layer framing applied
 optical and electrical interfaces
Main building blocks of a switch
Basic types of switching networks
 Statically switched networks
 connections established for longer periods of time (typically
for months or years)
 management system used for connection manipulation

 Dynamically switched networks

 connections established for short periods of time (typically
from seconds to tens of minutes)
 active signaling needed to manipulate connections

 Routing networks
 no connections established - no signaling
 each data unit routed individually through a network
 routing decision made dynamically or statically
Evolution of Switching Technologies
 Manual systems
 in the infancy of telephony,
exchanges were built up
with manually operated
switching equipment

 Electromechanical systems
 manual exchanges were replaced by automated electromechanical
switching systems
 a patent for automated telephone exchange in 1889 (Almon B. Strowger)
 step-by-step selector controlled directly by dial of a telephone set
 register-controlled system in which number information is first
received and analyzed in a register – the register is used to select
alternative switching paths
 more efficient routing of traffic through transmission network
 increased traffic capacity at lower cost
Switching in the ancient past

Almon B. Strowger
Evolution of Switching Technologies

 Computer-controlled systems
 FDM was developed round 1910, but implemented in 1950’s (ca.
1000 channels transferred in a coaxial cable)
 PCM based digital multiplexing introduced in 1970’s –
transmission quality improved – costs reduced further when
digital group switches were combined with digital transmission
systems
 computer control became necessary - the first computer
controlled exchange put into service in 1960 (in USA)
 strong growth of data traffic resulted in development of
separate data networks and switches – advent of packet
switching (sorting, routing and buffering)
 N-ISDN network combined telephone exchange and packet
data switches
 ATM based cell switching formed basis for B-ISDN
 next step is to use optical switching with electronic switch
control - all optical switching can be seen in the horizon
Evolution of Switching Technologies
Evolution of Switching Technologies
Evolution of switching technologies
Challenges of modern switching
 Support very different traffic profiles
 constant and variable bit rates, bursty traffic, etc.

 Simultaneous switching of highly different data rates

 from kbits/s rates to Gbits/s rates

 Support of varying delay requirements

 constant and variable delays

 Scalability
 number of input/output links, link bit rates, etc.

 Reliability, Resilience
 Cost
 Throughput
Elements Of Communication Switching System

 Telecommunication switching system

 Pass information from one terminal device to other one

 Telecommunication system Composed of

 End system or Instruments
 Transmission system
 Switching system
 Signaling
End Systems or Instruments
 Transmitter or receiver that is responsible for
 sending information
 decoding or inverting received information
Transmission System
 Purpose
 Conveys information and control signals between terminals and switching
centers
 Regenerate signals
Switching System
 What switching system does
 Receives the control signals, messages or conversations
 Modulates the signal, like link amplification
 Forwards to the required destination
 In computer communication
 packet switching or message switch
 In telephone network
 circuit switching/ packet switching
 Some practical switching systems
 step-by-step
 cross barred relay system
 digital switching systems
 electronic switching system
Signaling Systems
 Purpose
 exchanges signaling information effectively between subscribers
 Service standardization - provides the interface between different national
systems

 Types
 In band signaling
 Common channel signaling

 In band signaling
 voice information and signaling information travel on common paths

 Common channel signaling

 voice information and signaling information travel on separate paths
Basic Principle Of Switching
 At a fundamental level, a communications network is
composed of
 Switching and transmission resources
 Two users case
 No need for switching

 Three users case

 need for switching
Basic Principle Of Switching
 Large number of users
 point-to-point communication between each user – Mesh topology
 switched network

 Mesh Network
 number of links increases
exponentially – impractical

 Switched Network
 information transmitted
from source to destination
via different routes
Switching Hierarchy
Switching Technologies
 Two different switching technologies
 Circuit switching
 Packet switching
Circuit Switching
 Circuit switching:
 A dedicated communication path between two stations (end-to-end)
 The path is a connected sequence of links between network nodes.
On each physical link, a logical channel is dedicated to the connection.

 Communication via circuit switching has three phases:

 Circuit establishment (link by link)
 Routing & resource allocation
 Data transfer
 Circuit disconnect
 Deallocate the
dedicated resources
The switches must know how
to find the route to the
destination and how to allocate
bandwidth (channel) to establish a connection.
Circuit Switching Properties
 Inefficiency
 Channel capacity is dedicated for the whole duration of a connection
 If no data, capacity is wasted
 Delay
 Long initial delay: circuit establishment takes time
 Low data delay: after the circuit establishment, information is
transmitted at a fixed data rate with no delay other than the propagation
delay. The delay at each node is negligible.

 Developed for voice traffic (public telephone network) but

can also applied to data traffic.
 For voice connections, the resulting circuit will enjoy a high percentage
of utilization because most of the time one party or the other is talking.
 But how about data connections?
Public Circuit Switched Network

Subscribers: the devices that attach to the network.

Subscriber loop: the link between the subscriber and the network.
Exchanges: the switching centers in the network.
End office: the switching center that directly supports subscribers.
Trunks: the branches between exchanges. They carry multiple voice-frequency
circuits using either FDM or synchronous TDM.
Packet Switching Principles
 Problem of circuit switching
 Designed for voice service
 Resources dedicated to a particular call
 For data transmission, much of the time the connection is idle (say, web
browsing)
 Data rate is fixed
 Both ends must operate at the same rate during the entire period of connection
 Packet switching is designed to address these problems.
Basic Operation
 Data are transmitted in short packets
 Typically at the order of 1000 bytes
 Longer messages are split into series of packets
 Each packet contains a portion of user data plus some control info

 Control info contains at least

 Routing (addressing) info, so as to be routed to the intended destination
 content of an IP header

 store and forward

 On each switching node, packets are received, stored briefly (buffered)
and passed on to the next node.
Basic Operation
Basic Operation
Delay on the Way - Summary
Advantages of Packet Switching
 Line efficiency
 Single node-to-node link can be dynamically shared by many packets
over time
 Packets are queued up and transmitted as fast as possible

 Data rate conversion

 Each station connects to the local node at its own speed

 In circuit-switching, a connection could be blocked if

there lacks free resources. On a packet-switching
network, even with heavy traffic, packets are still
accepted, by delivery delay increases.

 Priorities can be used

 On each node, packets with higher priority can be forwarded first. They
will experience less delay than lower-priority packets.
Comparison of switching approaches
Packet Switching Technique
 A station breaks long message into packets

 Packets are sent out to the network sequentially, one at a time

 How will the network handle this stream of packets as it attempts to route
them through the network and deliver them to the intended destination?

 Two approaches
 Datagram approach
 Virtual circuit approach
Datagrams
 Simple idea:
 don’t set up a connection, just make sure each packet contains enough
information to get it to destination

 what is this? Complete destination address…or complete description of the

route

 Different priorities per packet might be used..

 Processing of a datagram:
 switch creates a table, mapping destinations to output port (ignores input
ports)

 when a packet with a destination address in the table arrives, it pushes it out
on the appropriate output port.
Datagrams
 Each packet is treated independently, with no reference to packets
that have gone before.
 Each node chooses the next node on a packet’s path

 Each packet treated independently

 Packets can take any practical route
 Packets may arrive out of order
 Packets may go missing
 Up to receiver to re-order packets and recover from missing packets
Datagrams
Tables of datagram processing

 Processing Each destination has to be listed in this tables

Virtual circuit packet switching
 The idea is to combine the advantages of circuit switching with the
advantages of datagram switching

 Virtual circuit packet switching:

 After a small connection setup phase only short (compared to full addresses) connection
identifier are used per packet; this reduces the addressing overhead per packet

During the setup phase, a table is created stating how to


process a packet with the corresponding connection identifier;
this reduces the per packet processing! –very important for
 Inhigh speed
virtual links…
circuit, a preplanned route is established before any packets are
sent, and then all packets follow the same route. But there is no dedicated
resources reserved for the virtual circuit!

 Each packet contains a virtual circuit identifier instead of destination

address, and each node on the preestablished route knows where to forward
such packets.
 The node need not make a routing decision for each packet.
Event Timing
How does forwarding work in VCs
Virtual Circuit issues
 Good: easy to associate resources with flows
 can guarantee buffering and delay, as well as care for Sequencing and Luck of
errors. This makes “quality of service” guarantees (QoS) easy to provide

 Also good: VCI small, making per-packet overhead small.

 Bad: not good in the face of crashes

 doesn’t handle host crashes well: each connection has state stored
throughout network. to close connection, host must explicitly issue a “tear
down.”

 Doesn’t handle switch crashes well: have to teardown and reinitiate a new
circuit
Space-Division Switching
 Circuit switching uses 3 technologies:
 Space-division switches,
 Time-division switches or
 Combination of both.

 Space-Division Switch
 Crossbar
 Multi-stage
Space-Division Switching
 Crossbar Switch
 Metallic crosspoint or semiconductor gate
 Enabled or disabled by a control unit
Crossbar Switch
 Each crosspoint has 2 states:
 Bar State
 Cross State

Bar State Cross State

Space Division Switches
Space-Division Switch
 A basic switch matrix at a typical instant in time

Outgoing
Circuits

Incoming
Circuits Inactive switch crosspoint
Active switch crosspoint
Space-Division Switch
 The same switch matrix a few moments later

Outgoing
Circuits

Incoming
Circuits
Inactive switch crosspoint
Active switch crosspoint
Two-/Four-Wire Switches
Four-Wire Switches
 Switching a four-wire connection
Rx
Circuit 5
Tx

Transmit P - wires
(Tx) pair
Circuit A
Receive
(Rx) pair
P - wires
Crosspoints
connected in
unison
Two-/Four-Wire Switches
Improving Utilization: Folding
Crossbar Switches - Limitations
 Limitations
 The number of crosspoints grows with the square of the number of attached
stations.

 Costly for a large switch.

 The failure of a crosspoint prevents connection between the two devices whose
lines intersect at that crosspoint.

 The crosspoints are inefficiently utilized.

 Only a small fraction of crosspoints are engaged even if all of the attached devices
are active.
Multistage crossbar
 How can we solve problems in crossbar switching ?
 use multistage space division switches

 In a crossbar, during each switching time, only one crosspoint per row or
column is active.

 How can we save crosspoints?

 Attach a crosspoint to more than one input line.

 This can be done in a multistage crossbar.

 By splitting the crossbar switch into smaller units and interconnecting them, it is
possible to build multistage switches with fewer crosspoints.
Multistage crossbar

A three-stage space division switch

 The number of crosspoints needed goes down from 64 to 40.

 There is more than one path through the network to connect two endpoints,
 increases reliability

 Multistage switches may lead to blocking

Multistage crossbar

Blocking nature of the switch

 The blocking feature illustrated: after setting up connections for 1-to-3 and 2-to-4,
the switch cannot establish connections for 3-to-6 and 4-to-5.

 The blocking problem can be tackled by increasing the number or size of the
intermediate switches,
 increases the cost.
Multistage crossbar
 Advantage:
 Reduction of crosspoints(Number of crosspoints < N2)
 Try to make usage of crosspoints “more efficient”
 Use one crosspoint for several internal paths
 Robustness: Have several path for one input / output pair

 Issues
 Can suffer internal blocking unless sufficient number of second-level stages
 Finding a path from input to output requires a depth-first-search
 Scales better than crossbar, but still not too well
 Tradeoff: Increased control complexity
 At minimum three stages necessary to avoid internal blocking
 Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION TO SWITCHING

Lecture 2
• The figure-1 depicts plain old telephone system components from
calling to called terminal.
• Transmission system can be wired or wireless medium used to
transport information in various forms to withstand against various
path losses.
• Transmission link carry both user information (voice, data, message,
video) as well as signaling information.
• Medium of transmission can be guided or unguided. Based on this,
typical examples of transmission systems are microwave link,
satellite link, fiber optic line, coaxial line, 2-wire transmission line
etc.
The switching system offers various services to the subscribers. The
switching system is a collection of switching elements arranged and
controlled in such a way as to setup a communication path between any
two distant points or terminals.

➤Switching system is categorized into manual and automatic.

➤Automatic switching system is divided into electro-mechanical
switching and electronic switching types.
➤Strowger (i.e. step by step switching) and crossbar switching falls
under electro-mechanical switching.
➤Time division switching, Space division and space-time switching falls
under electronic switching.
➤Typical examples of switching systems are telephone exchanges, voice
switches, gateways, routers, switches etc.
• Based on type of information to be transported such as voice, data or
message there are different switching mechanisms such as circuit
switching, packet switching and message switching respectively.
Analog Switching
• Analog switching refers to switching of analog signals using analog
switches.
• The system uses analog signals on line side and trunk side of the
switch on both the ends.
• Analog lines and/or trunks are interfaced with digital system with
the help of A/D converter and D/A converter as required.
• Hence analog switching system requires A/D and D/A converters in
order to process digital signals.
Digital Switching
• Digital switching refers to switching of digital signals using digital
switches.
• Digital switches can interact with each other via digital trunks while
simultaneously supporting analog lines and analog trunks.
• There is no analog lines/trunks in digital switching system.
• Hence all the communications between digital switches are carried
out via digital signaling.
• The figure depicts various modules of digital switching system. As
shown, line modules (LMs) and trunk modules (TMs) are the major
building blocks of such system.
• The other modules include Interface controller (IC), switching fabric,
service circuits (SC), central processor, network control processors
etc.
• Here switching fabric means switching matrix which is used to
switch lines and trunks under the control of central processor and
network controllers.
Analog switching vs Digital switching

Analog switching Digital switching

Operates on analog signals Operates on digital signals

Requires analog switches for its operation. Requires digital switches for its operation.

It is slow in speed of operation. It is fast in speed of operation.

Performance is good. Performance is best compare to analog switching counterpart.

It does not require memory for its operation. It uses memory to store calling and called party information.
Time division switching

• Time division switching is a method used in telecommunications

networks to allow multiple users to share the same communication
channel by dividing the available time into small, fixed-duration time
slots.
• In time division switching, data is transmitted in discrete time slots,
and each time slot is allocated to a specific user or channel for a short
period of time.
• In a time division switching system, the incoming data is divided
into frames, each of which contains a fixed number of time slots.
• Each time slot is allocated to a specific user, and the user's data is
transmitted during that time slot.
• Once the time slot is complete, the next user's data is transmitted
during the next time slot.
• Time division switching is commonly used in digital communication
systems such as voice and data networks, where it allows multiple
users to share a single communication channel.
• It is also used in modern telephone networks to switch calls between
different lines or circuits, allowing multiple calls to be handled
simultaneously.
Analog Time Division switching

• Analog time division switching and digital time division switching

are two different techniques used in telecommunications networks to
transmit data through time slots.
• Analog time division switching is a technique that is based on analog
signals.
• In this technique, the incoming analog signals are sampled at fixed
intervals of time, and each sample is transmitted as a time slot.
• Each time slot is then allocated to a specific user, and the user's
analog signal is transmitted during that time slot.
Analog Time Division switching

Shared Bus
Analog Time Division switching

 The sampling frequency of each channel must satisfy Nyquist law ( 2*
bandwidth)
 A real system uses a set of electronic switches instead of a rotating
arrow!
 The switches are enabled (connect to bus) or disabled (disconnect from
bus) using a control unit
 There are two types of control units
 Cyclic Control
 Memory-based Control
Cyclic Control
 Two control units are required, one for the input lines and the other for
the output lines
 The decoder uses the count value to enable a certain input/output
 By synchronizing the input and output control units, we can connect
different inputs to different outputs
 k = log2(N), N is the number of input/output lines
Memory Based Control

• Cyclic control forces a certain sequence for the input output

connections, e.g. 1-1, 2-2 means 3-3, 4-4, etc
• By adding a memory element between the counter and the decoder,
any input-output connections are possible
• It is also possible to connect the same input/output to several
outputs/inputs at different times
• The counter cycles reading the values stored in the memory
• The decoder decodes the read value
• Only one memory based control is necessary, the other can be
memory based or cyclic control
Memory Based Control…….

5 …

4
2
Modulo N 6 k to 2k
Counter 1 Decoder
k lines/bits 4 k lines/bits
3
0
Capacity of Time Division Switching System
 The capacity (C) is given by:
 C = (Time between samples in any line)/(Time to Tx sample (ts))
 For memory based control
 ts = ti + tm + td + tt
 Where:
 ti  time to increment the counter
 tm  time to read the memory (zero for cyclic control)
 td  time to decode the address and select the input/output
 tt  time to transfer the sample through the bus
 Time between samples = 1/sampling frequency
Limitations

 Synchronization is essential for the operation of the system. For large

networks this is a major concern
 The sampling process in analog system does not use all the energy of the
signal leading to a large loss in signal power
 The signal bandwidth increases thus increasing the noise power
 Hence the SNR becomes very low in analog time switching and this is
why it’s not practical
Digital time division switching

• Digital time division switching, on the other hand, is a technique

that is based on digital signals.
• In this technique, the incoming digital signals are divided into fixed-
size frames, and each frame is further divided into fixed-duration
time slots.
• Each time slot is then allocated to a specific user, and the user's
digital data is transmitted during that time slot.
Digital time division switching

• The main difference between analog time division switching and

digital time division switching is the type of signal used.
• Analog time division switching is based on analog signals, while
digital time division switching is based on digital signals.
• Another important difference is the level of accuracy and reliability.
• Digital time division switching is more accurate and reliable because
it is based on precise digital signals, whereas analog time division
switching may suffer from signal degradation and noise interference.
• In modern telecommunications networks, digital time division
switching is the preferred method due to its accuracy, reliability, and
flexibility in handling various types of data.