Basic Telephony

Dr Kavita Burse

Basic Telephony
Telecommunication is the transmission of information in the form of voice, data, video or images, across a distance over a medium from a sender to a receiver. Sound is the vibration of air molecules at a rapid rate to produce air pressure changes. This is called compression and rarefaction. The oscillations of air pressure at a rapid rate create human speech

Basic Telephony
The human voices produce sound at a constantly changing set of frequencies (pitch) and amplitude (loudness). Sound cannot travel through vacuum. For humans, hearing is normally limited to frequencies between 12 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Voice communication is the study and application of sound transmission over electromagnetic spectrum.

Basic Telephony
The equipment used to provide voice communication over long a distance is the telephone. The credit for the invention of the telephone goes to Alexander Graham Bell. Thomas Edison invented the carbon transmitter (or the microphone) which became widely used for telephone.

Basic Telephony
Bell applied for the patent of the first telephone in 1876. The same year Bell and his assistant Thomas A Watson produced two telephone instruments that successfully transmitted human voice. In 1900 the American Telegraph and Telephone (AT & T) Company became the parent company of the Bell system.

Basic Telephony
The initial telephone network consisted of many dedicated individual lines running from a single subscriber to every other subscriber. As the number of users increased it became an impractical network layout and the problem was solved by the concept of Central Exchange. The operator at the central exchange manually connected the calling subscriber to the called subscriber, provided directory and conference calling assistance.

Basic Telephony
In 1891 the automatic exchange switch was developed. The Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) has been available since the invention of telephone in 19th century. It originally consisted of a network of fixed line analog telephone systems to provide bidirectional (full duplex) voice grade services over a frequency range of 300 to 3400 Hz.

Basic Telephony
The bandwidth of the channel was limited to 3 KHz because the cost of transmitting the signal across the telephone network is directly proportional to the range of frequencies carried. Each customer or subscriber with a telephone set was wired to the local exchange through a pair of twisted copper wires called the local loop. The telephone exchange performed the switching function.

Basic Telephony
The exchanges were connected together with trunks. A trunk is a single transmission channel between two switching centers. Networks were connected in a hierarchical manner to form the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

Basic Telephony
The network expanded to include fiber optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communication satellites and under sea telephone cables. With the digital technology as the core many new services were added, the quality of transmission improved and the cost of conventional voice services was reduced.

The Standard Telephone Set

500 type telephone set

The Standard Telephone Set

The telephone is derived from the Greek word tele meaning far and phone meaning voice. Telephone is a device that transmits and receives sound in a point to point, long distance communication system.

The Standard Telephone Set

The telephone instrument has a microphone to speak into, an earphone to hear the other person on the line, a ringer circuit for sound alert when a call is coming, a keypad to dial numbers, filtering and amplification circuits.
The microphone and the earphone are integrated into a handset which can be held close to the face, where as the keypad and the other circuits form a separate set.

The Standard Telephone Set

The microphone is a transducer that converts sound waves to electrical signals which are transmitted over the telephone line. At the receiving end, the earphone converts this electrical signal back to audio signal or voice.

500 Type Telephone set

The rotary dial is a device mounted on a telephone that was designed to send interrupted electrical pulses, corresponding to the number dialled. To dial a number, the user puts a finger in the corresponding finger hole and rotates the dial clockwise until it reaches the finger stop. When the user pulls out his finger, a spring in the dial returns it to the resting position. If the user dials 5, then the electric contacts will open and close five times, thus sending five pulses to the central office.

2500 type telephone set

2500 type telephone set

The modern touch tone telephone is called a 2500 type telephone set. The touch tone telephone is a communication device that makes use of a form of telephone switching that is known as dual tone multi frequency (DTMF). DTMF replaced the earlier pulse switching used in rotary dial.

Block Diagram of Telephone set

Telephone set parts Hand Set

The transmitter and receiver part of the telephone instrument is housed in the handset. The length of the handset is so designed to stretch it from mouth to the ear. The transmitter also known as the microphone or the mouthpiece is located at the bottom portion of the handset and the receiver also known as the earpiece or the speaker is located at the top of the handset.

Telephone set parts Hand Set

Two wires are connected to the microphone and two wires are connected to the speaker. One set of wires carries the electrical signal from the telephone set to the speaker and the other set of wires carry the signal generated in the microphone to the telephone set.

Telephone set parts Hand Set

The carbon microphone is a sound to electrical signal transducer consisting of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon. One plate faces outward and acts as a diaphragm. The diaphragm is housed below the lower case of the microphone. It is a very sensitive membrane that vibrates with air pressure changes. The diaphragm oscillates with the same frequency as that of the voice. The pressure on the granules changes when sound waves produced by the vocal cord strike the diaphragm. as the granules are compressed.

Telephone set parts Hand Set

Telephone set parts Hand Set

When DC current is passed from one plate to other, the corresponding changing resistance produces changing current which is transmitted. This analog current amplitude variation is directly proportional to the frequency changes of the sound produced. The carbon microphones low cost, inherently high output and peaked frequency response characteristics made them very popular for the use in telephone sets. However their limited frequency response and high level of noise led to obsolesce.

Equalizer Circuit
Equalizer is a filter with passive and active elements for altering the frequency response of a system to compensate for the amplitude and phase distortions. Telephone systems use equalization circuits to correct for the reduced level of high frequencies in long cables. Digital subscriber loops operating in MHz range suffer severe attenuation and distortion which is removed by equalization.

Equalizer Circuit
The equalizer can also be used to produce a circuit with wider bandwidth than the standard telephone bandwidth of 300 Hz to 3.4 KHz. Equalizers can also be used to correct the response of the transducers for example a particular microphone might be more sensitive to low frequency sound than to high frequency sound.

On Hook/ Off Hook Circuit

The handset rests into the cradle of the telephone set on a spring loaded switch hook. The on/off hook switch is a single throw double pole switch which is connected to the local loop via the tip and the ring. It makes or breaks the DC current path between the telephone set and the exchange.

On Hook/ Off Hook Circuit

A -48 V DC battery remains connected to the circuit. In the on hook condition, the handset rests on the cradle, the circuit is in break condition and the DC current flow from the exchange to the telephone is blocked. When a subscriber wants to make a call he lifts the handset and the on/off push buttons pop up which is known as off hook.

On Hook/ Off Hook Circuit

As soon as the hand set is lifted a resistance gets connected across the wire and the circuit is completed. The DC current now flows through the local loop, alerting the telephone exchange that the subscriber wishes to make a call. The exchange provides the dial tone immediately so that the subscriber can start dialling the numbers.

Ringer Circuit
A phone ring is a sound signal made by the ringer circuit to alert the user of an incoming telephone call. The ringer circuit is placed directly across the tip and ring of the local loop. Tip and Ring refer to the two wires of the telephone line. Tip is the ground side (positive) and ring is the battery (negative) side of the phone circuit.

Ringer Circuit
The battery voltage is directly proportional to the distance at which the telephone can be operated. Higher voltage will send the signal to a greater distance. Higher voltage is hazardous for normal operation. Originally telephone systems used positive voltages on wire with respect to ground. With positive voltage on the copper wires there was ageing effect on copper wires due to electrolysis.

Ringer Circuit
Negative voltage on the wires with respect to earth protects the copper from corrosion. Older telephone sets had a ringing mechanism consisting of a bell and an electromagnetically driven hammer to produce the ringing sound. The ringing electrical signal is a DC pulse train of 60-90 V at a frequency of 25 Hz.

Ringer Circuit
This alternating signal powers the electromagnet which rapidly moves and releases the hammer to cause striking effect of the hammer. The ringing signal is tripped when the line impedance is reduced to 300 ohms. This happens when the subscriber lifts the handset to answer the call.

Ringer Circuit
The reduced impedance signals that the telephone call has been answered and the telephone exchange immediately removes the ringing signal from the line. The ringing pattern is known as the ring cadence. In the fixed line plain old telephone systems the ring signal is switched on/off to create the ringing pattern. In North America two seconds of ringing is followed by four seconds of silence.

Dialing Circuit
Each subscriber accessing the telephone network is assigned an identity in the form of a number. Every time a person initiates a call the called subscriber number is communicated to the local exchange by dialling the number. The dialling can be of two types pulse or Dual Tone Multi Frequency (DTMF).

Pulse Dialing
In pulse dialling each pulse consist of a make or break. The make is the period during which the circuit is closed. The break period is the time when the circuit is open. The cycle corresponds to the ratio of 60% break and 40% make. A series of pulses represent a digit for example 6 is represented by six pulses except in case of 0 which is represented by 10 pulses.

Pulse Dialing
Successive digits are separated by inter digit gap which can vary from a minimum time of 200 msec to 400-500 msec. The simple telephone keypad has replaced the rotary dial telephone set. The dial pulses should be prevented from reaching the transmitter, receiver and the ringing circuit of the telephone set to prevent damage.

Pulse Dialing
Sparks are generated during the make and break of circuit during the pulsing process. The dialling circuit contains a mechanism for quenching of sparks.

Pulse Dialing
The impulse switch (IS1) which is connected in series with the DC loop remains in closed position when the dial circuit is not in use. The two by pass switches SW1 and SW2 close as soon as the dialling starts and by pass the transmitter, receiver and ringing circuit during pulse dialling. The switch SW2 provides an alternate path for the sparking voltage developed during the circuit break.

DTMF: Dual Tone Multi Frequency

DTMF is used for telecommunication signalling over analog telephone lines in the voice frequency band between telephone handsets and other communication devices and the switching center. Since touching a button generated a tone it was called touch tone.

DTMF: Dual Tone Multi Frequency

The touch tone system using the telephone keypad gradually replaced the rotary dial in 1963. It is a method of in band signalling which uses the same channel and frequencies from 300 Hz to 3.4 KHz as used by the voice. In band signalling may cause talk off which means voice signal may be mistaken for touch tone signal if the subscriber happens to talk while dialling.

DTMF: Dual Tone Multi Frequency

Simple single frequency signalling is more prone to talk off as these frequencies occur frequently in speech or music. This problem is eliminated in DTMF by design considerations such as choice of code, frequencies, power level and signalling duration.

DTMF: Dual Tone Multi Frequency

The DTMF keypad consists of a 44 matrix with each row representing a low frequency and each column representing a high frequency. The DTMF system uses eight different frequency signals transmitted in pairs to represent sixteen different numbers, symbols and letters.

DTMF Keypad Frequencies

1209 Hz 1336 Hz 1477 Hz 1633 Hz A

697 Hz

770 Hz
852 Hz 941 Hz

4
7 *

5
8 0

6
9 #

B
C D

DTMF Keypad Frequencies

Pressing a single key such as 1 will send sinusoid tone for each of the two frequency 697 Hz and 1209 Hz. The multiple tones thus generated, give the system the name multi frequency. The DTMF has the advantage that the two set of frequencies can be separated easily at the receiver end using band filtering.