EEE 441

Switching System
Dr. Md. Forkan Uddin
Associate Professor, Dept. of EEE, BUET,
Dhaka 1000

Classification of Switching System

In early days, the human exchange provided switching
facilities
In manual exchanges, a human operator and the elements like
switches, plugs and sacks were used to connect two
subscribers
Around 1890s 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

Classification of Switching System

The later invention of electronic switching system (ESS) which
uses stored program control (SPC) and computer controlled
switching systems are presently dominating

Functions of Switching
Identity
The local switching center must react to a calling signal from calling
subscriber
The local switching center must be able to receive information to
identify the required destination terminal seize
Addressing
The switching system must be able to identify the called subscriber
from the input information (train of pulses or multiple frequency
depends on the dialing facility
The address may be in same local centre or some other exchange
If the terminal or trunk group is busy, a suitable signal must be
returned to the calling subscriber
If more than one free circuit, particular one will be selected
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Functions of Switching
Finding and path setup
Once the calling subscriber destination is identified and the
called subscriber is available, an accept signal is passed to the
switching system and calling subscriber
Based on the availability, suitable path will be selected
Busy testing
If number dialled by the calling subscriber is wrong or the
called subscriber is busy or the terminal may be free (lifting
the phone) but no response , a switching system has to pass a
corresponding voice message or busy tone after waiting for
some time .
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Functions of Switching
Supervision
Once the path is setup between calling and called subscriber, it
should be supervised in order to detect answer and clear down
conditions and recording billing information
Clear down
When the established call is completed, the path setup should be
disconnected
If the calling subscriber keeps the phone down first, the signal
called clear forward is passed to the switching system
If the called subscriber keeps the phone down first, a signal called
clear backward signal is passed to the switching system
By clear signal, the switching system must disconnect the path
setup between calling and called subscriber
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Functions of Switching

Billing
A switching system should have a mechanism to meter to
count the number of units made during the conversation
The cumulative number of units made for a particular
duration by the calling subscriber is calculated
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Requirements of Switching System

High availability
The telephone system must be very reliable

Requirements of Switching System

High speed.
The switching speed should be high enough to make use of
the switching system efficiently
The speed of switching depends on how quickly the control
signals are transmitted
For instance, the seize signal from the calling terminal must
be identified quickly by the system to realise the need of path
setup by the subscriber
The common control should be used effectively to identify
the called terminal or the free trunks to setup a path

Requirements of Switching System

Good facilities
A switching system must have various facilities to serve the
subscriber
For example, wake up calls, address identification on phone
number or phone number identification on address, recording
facilities, quick service for the emergency numbers, good
accessibility etc
High security
To ensure satisfied or correct operation provision should be
provided in the switching system
Duplicated common control circuits, registers, processors and
standby systems are used provide high security
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Classes of Switching

Space division switching

Provides fixed path for the entire duration of a call
Simple, full bandwidth, no cross talk
But slow to operate, bulky, and involves large amount of wiring
Time division switching
All inlets and outlet one connected to a common switch mechanism
The switch is connected to the required inlet and outlet for short
durations
Each input is sampled to change the connecting pattern
Switch is fast and compact
Limited applications for analog signal (sampling process should not
affect the signal)
More practical value only when the signal is already in digital form
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Classes of Switching
Frequency division switching
The incoming signal is modulated onto a difficult carrier
frequency
Switching is achieved if each outlet is provided with a
demolulator
Other than radio communication, until recently, there was no
practical applications with this switching
Frequency division switching is now finding applications in
demand assigned satellite communication links

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Simple Human Exchange

In the manual exchange (until 1892), the control was provided
by a human operator and the elements of the switch
assemblies are plugs and jacks
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
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Simple Human Exchange

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

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Limitations of Human Exchange

Language dependent
Lack of privacy
Switching delay
Limited service

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STROWGER STEP BY STEP SWITCHING

The first automatic electromechanical switch was developed
by Connolly and Mcig the in 1879
Strowger produced a working model of step by step switching
in 1888
It was the most popular and widely used and even now in
some part of the world, it is in use
Elements: a) Uniselectors and (b) Two motion selectors

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Uniselector
Has a single rotary switch with a bank
of contacts
The contact arm (wiper) moves across
a fixed set of switch contacts
In the case single uniselector, each
contact is connected to an outgoing
channel
Wiper movement is performed by a
drive mechanism by energizing a
electromagnet with pulses

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Two motion selectors

A set of wipers is moved in two different planes by means of
separate mechanisms
By mounting several arcs of outlets on top of each other, the
number of outlets can be increased significantly
Wipers are required to move both horizontally to select a
bank and then vertically to move around that bank to the
required outlet

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STROWGER STEP BY STEP SWITCHING

Subscriber line circuit (SLC)

Every subscriber is connected to his local exchange by one
pair of wires
At the exchange, every subscriber line terminates into its own
subscriber line circuit (SLC)

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STROWGER STEP BY STEP SWITCHING

Line Finder & Alloter

Many subscribers but only a few selectors
A method is used for finding a free selector and to connect
the calling subscriber to that free selector
To find a free selector, alloter switch is used for connecting
calling subscriber and selector line
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STROWGER STEP BY STEP SWITCHING

Line Finder & Alloter (Cont..)

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
Then first selector sends the dial tone to the subscriber and then
ready to receive dialled pulses from the calling subscriber

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STROWGER STEP BY STEP SWITCHING

Group Selector
Depends on the subscriber number, the group selector may
comprise one or two selectors, generally referred as first and
second selectors
For 3 digit number, only one selector is required
For a 4 digit number, two selectors are required

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STROWGER STEP BY STEP SWITCHING

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STROWGER STEP BY STEP SWITCHING

Final selector
Takes care of the last two digits
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
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Disadvantages
Switching involves heavy mechanical displacements, regular
maintenance by the skilled technicians are necessary
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
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 pulse)
Congestion could arise when the switching system is heavily loaded
The capacity of switching system reduces if codes of different
numbers are allotted to various subscribers, such as fire service,
police ambulance, fault reports, directory enquiry, operator
assistance etc.
The strowger system can accept only 7 to 9 pulses in 1 second.
Hence if we dial fast, the system can not give correct performance 25

Crossbar Switching
Uses common control networks
The common control networks enables the exchange to
perform event monitoring, call processing, charging,
operation and maintenance
The common control method of switching overcomes the
disadvantages of step-by-step switching
The common control makes no call processing until it receives
entire number
It receives all the number, stores, and then establishes
connection

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Crossbar Switching: Rectangular

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Crossbar Switching: Rectangular

Contains an array of horizontal and vertical wires
Both wires are connected to initially separated contact points
of switches
Horizontal and vertical bars (shown as dotted lines) are
mechanically connected to these contact points and attached
to the electromagnets
When both horizontal and vertical bars connected to the
electromagnet are activated, the contact of the intersection of
the two bars will close together
Thus the contact is made and continues to hold
When the electromagnets are de-energized both horizontal
bar and vertical bars are released from the contact
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Crossbar Switching: Rectangular

The crossbar switch is known as a non-blocking crossbar
configuration
It requires N*N switching elements for N subscribers

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Graded Rectangular X-bar

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Intra group Crossbar Switching: Square

The number of cross-points are N (N1), where N is the
number of subscribers
A back up connection for each pair

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Intra group Crossbar Switching:

Triangular
The number of cross-points are reduced to N (N1)/2, where N is
the number of subscribers
When subscriber C initiates a call, his horizontal bar is energised
first and then the appropriate bar
The diagonal cross-point matrix is also fully connected non-blocking
configuration
The difficulty is that the failure of a single switch will make some
subscribers inaccessible

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Problems in Single Stage X-bar

Switching
The number of switches in single stage O(N2), i.e., N*N , N(N-1)
or N*(N-1)/2
The large number of cross-points on each inlet and outlet line
imply a large amount of capacitive loading on the message
paths
Another fundamental deficiency of single-stage switches is that
one specific cross-point is needed for each specific connection
If that cross-point fails, the associated connection cannot be
established
Analysis of a large single-stage switch reveals that the crosspoints are very inefficiently utilized
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Multi-stage (X-bar) Switching

How to increase the utilization efficiency of the cross-points?
Any particular cross-point be usable for more than one
potential connection (Blocking may occur)
How to avoid blocking?
More than one path be available for any potential
connection
The alternate paths serve to eliminate or reduce blocking and
also to provide protection against failures
The sharing of cross-points for potential paths through the
switch is accomplished by multiple-stage switching

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Multi-stage (X-bar) Switching

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Multi-stage Switching
k possible paths through the switch for any particular
connection between inlets and outlets
Each of the k paths utilizes a separate center stage array
Provides alternate paths through the switch to circumvent
failures
Each switching link is connected a limited number of crosspoints and hence, capacitive loading is minimized
Total number of cross-points, Nx

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Non-blocking Multi-Stage

Since each first-stage array has n inlets, only n - I of these inlets can be
busy
Similarly, at most n - I links to the appropriate third-stage array can be
busy
Thus, k=(n-1)+(n-1)+1 =2n -1 to avoid blocking fully
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Non-blocking Multi-Stage Switching

Thus,
The optimum value of n is
The optimum value of number of switches

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Multi-Stage Switching with Blocking

Strictly non-blocking switches are rarely needed
Equipment for the public telephone network is designed to
provide a certain maximum probability of blocking for the
busiest hour of the day
A typical residential telephone is busy 5-l0% of the time
during the busy hour
A certain percentage of blocking reduces the number of
switches significantly

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Multi-Stage Switching: Blocking

Probability
Notations:
p: fraction of time that a particular link is in use, i.e., the
probability that a link is busy
q=1-p: the probability that a link is idle
Assumption: The probabilities in different links are
independent
When n parallel links are used for one connection, the
probability that all the links are busy, i.e., blocking probability
B=pn
When n series links are used for one connection, the
probability that all the links are free is qn . Hence, blocking
probability
B=1-qn

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Multi-Stage Switching: Probability

Graph (Lee Graph)
p= probability that an interstage link is busy

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Multi-Stage Switching: Blocking

Probability

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Performance with Blocking

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Five Stage Switching Network

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Probability Graph and Blocking

Probability

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Impact of increasing Stage

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Limitations of Lee Graph Based Models

Assumption: The busy/idle probabilities in the different links
are assumed to be independent
Facts:
The probabilities are not independent particularly when
significant amounts of expansion are present
Consider a switching matrix with k=2n -1 in three stage
switching, the expression of blocking probability provide finite
blocking probability even though the switch is known to be
strictly non blocking (Why?????)
The inaccuracy is due to the fact the when n-1+n-1=2n-2
paths are busy, the remaining paths are assumed also busy
with probability
though those are idle
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Limitations of Lee Graph Based Models

When space expansion exists, the Lee model provide
erroneously high value of blocking probability
A more accurate but not exact analysis of multi-stage
switching matrices was presented by C. Jacobaeus in 1950

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Jacobaeus model

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Comparison

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Time Division Switching (TDS)

Multiple-stage switching save cross-points as well as
implementation const in space division switching
In space division switching, a cross-point assigned to a
particular connection is dedicated to that connection for its
duration
Time division switching involves the sharing of cross-points for
short periods of time
Individual cross-points and their associated inter stage links
are continually reassigned to existing connections
Much greater savings in cross-points can be achieved by time
division multiplexing
Two types: analog TDS and digital TDS
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Analog TDS
Analog time division switching has become obsolete

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Analog TDS
A single switching bus supports a multiple number of
connections by interleaving PAM samples from receive line
interfaces to transmit line interfaces
Two cyclic control stores are used
First control store controls gating of inputs onto the bus one
sample at a time
The second control store operates in synchronising the first
and selects the appropriate output line for each input sample
The switching capacity or number of channel supported by
cyclic controlled system is

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Digital TDS
Channel 3 of the first TDM link is connected to channel l7 of
the last TDM link
The indicated connection implies that information arriving in
time slot 3 of the first input link is transferred to time slot l7 of
the last output link
Return connection is required and realized by transferring
information from time slot 17 of the last input link to time slot
3 of the first output link

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Digital TDS
Exchange information between two different time slot is done
by a time slot interchange (TSI) circuit

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Two Dimensional 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
Larger digital switching system requires both time and space
switching

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Two Dimensional Switching

Time- space (TS) switching: use time and switching
Time switching: Time slot interchange (TSI)
Space switching: cross-bar switching

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Multi-dimensional Switching
The multiple stages overcomes the limitations of the
individual switches and cost savings can also be achieved
TST, STS, TSST, TSSSST and TSTSTSTSTSTSTS are the switching
system configurations used in digital switching system
TST structure is the most common

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STS

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TST

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