3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks

SIGNALLING
In a telecommunication network, signalling systems are as essential as switching systems and transmission systems. They must be compatible with the switching systems as they must be able to transmit all the signals required to operate the switches. They must also be compatible with the transmission system in order to reach the exchange that they control. Thus, design of signalling systems is directly influenced by both switching and transmission requirements. Exchanges usually send signals over the same circuits in the network as the connections which they control. This is known as channel associated signaling. In SPC, the need for more signals to be transmitted between exchanges arise. These signals are transmitted between two processors of two different exchanges over a separate data channel. This is known as common channel signalling (CCS). Signaling can be classified as follows:

Signalling

Inchannel

Common channel

DC

Low frequency

Voice frequency

PCM

Associated

Non-associated

Inband

Outband

Fig. Signalling techniques Inchannel versus common channel signalling: INCHANNEL

1. 2. 3. Trunks are held up during signaling Signal repertoire is limited Interference between voice and control signals may occur Separate signaling equipment is required for each trunk and hence is expensive.

COMMON CHANNEL
Trunks are not required for signalling. Extensive signalling repertoire is possible No interference as the two channels are physically separated. Only one set of signalling equipment is required for a whole group of trunk circuits, therefore is inexpensive. Signalling is significantly fast. There is no automatic test of the speech circuit.

4.

Signaling is relatively slow

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5. 6. 7. 8. Speech circuit reliability is assured. It is difficult to change or add signals. It is difficult to handle signaling during speech period. Reliability of signaling path is not critical. Possibility of misuse by customers. 9. 10. There is flexibility to change or add signals. Signals can be handled anytime.

Reliability of signalling path is critical. Control channel is generally inaccessible to customers.

Customer line signalling:

In a local telephone network, loop/disconnect signaling is used for sending customers call and clear signals to the exchange. Due to maximum permissible line resistance (because of minimum line current), there is a limit on the maximum length of the line and area served by the exchange. When dial telephones are used, customers send address information by decadic pulsing which is received by a relay circuit. However push-button telephones use DTMF revolutionized customer line signaling.

FDM carrier systems:

Outband signalling:
In Frequency Division Multiplex (FDM) systems, the carriers are placed at intervals of 4kHz and the baseband is from 300Hz to 3.4kHz. by using channel filters with a sharp cut-off, it is possible to insert a narrow-band signalling channel above the speech band (3.4kHz to 4kHz). This is known as outband signalling .

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A DC signal on the input lead M at one terminal causes the signal frequency to be sent over the transmission channel. This is detected on the other terminal to give a corresponding DC signal on the output lead E. If the repeater station containing the FDM channeling equipment is adjacent to the switching equipment, it is simpler for the latter to send and receive signals over separate E and M wires than to extract them from and re-insert them into the speech circuit. The E lead always carries signal from the signaling apparatus to the switching equipment and the M lead carries signals from the switching equipment to the signalling apparatus. To use outband signalling successfully in a network, all routes must use FDM systems with built-in outband signalling.

Inband (VF) signalling:

Signals that are placed in the outband region need all routes to be equipped with proper outband signalling FDM systems. This problem is solved if the signals transmitted are placed in the baseband of FDM systems. This is known as inband signalling and this will function over any circuit which provides satisfactory speech transmission. A voice frequency signaling system is shown in the figure below.

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Outgoing signal terminal

VF receiver fs ~ Forward Buffer amplifier

Incoming signal terminal

Switching equipmen t

Transmit line split Buffer amplifier

Four wire circuit

Receive line split

Switching equipmen t

Backward Receive line split VF receiver ~ fs

Transmit line split

Fig. Voice frequency(VF) signalling system The line is split when the signal tone is transmitted in order to confine it to the link concerned. Consequently, the tone spills over before the receiver has operated but this spill-over is ignored because its duration is less than the length of the signals used. The unity gain buffer amplifier at the receiving end prevents transients produced by electro-mechanical switching equipment from reaching the VF receiver. Since the voice frequency signals are used, there occurs a possibility of signal imitation which is undesirable. The following measures are taken to avoid this: A signal frequency is chosen at which the energy in speech is low (i.e. above 2khz). The durations of signals are made longer than the period for which the speech frequency is likely to persist in speech. Use is made of the fact that the signal frequency is unlikely to be produced in speech without other frequencies also being present. In order to make use of the last measure, the receiver contains a signal circuit with a band pass filter to accept the signal frequency and a guard circuit with a band stop filter to accept all other frequencies and reject the signal frequency. The outputs of both circuits are rectified and compared. If the output from the signal circuit exceeds that from the guard circuit, the receiver operates and gives an output signal, and vice-versa.

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PCM signalling:
In this, the DC signals associated with the audio frequency baseband circuits in each direction are sampled and the signal samples are transmitted within the frame of PCM channels. It is therefore unnecessary to use VF signalling.

The 2Mbits system has 32 8bit time slots, but it provides only 30 channels. Time slot 0 is used for frame alignment and time slot 16 is used for signaling, as shown above. The 8bits of channel 16 are shared between the 30 channels by a process of multi-framing. 16 successive appearances of channel 16 form a multi-frame of 8bit time slots. The first contains a multi-frame alignment signal and each of the subsequent 15 time slots contain 4 bits for each of the two channels. This enables a large number of signals to be exchanged than is possible with the DC signaling methods. When PCM signaling is used for common channel signaling, then multi-framing is not needed.

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Inter-register signalling:
For register-controlled exchanges, a register in the originating exchange receives address information from the calling customer and sends out routing digits. This goes on till the terminating exchange is reached. This introduces post-dialing delay which is minimized using inband multi-frequency signaling systems. This enables an operator to send address information over a junction to an automatic exchange more rapidly than by dialing. In inter-register signaling systems, the signal initiates a connection to a register. The register is released after it has set up a connection through its exchange and sent out routing digits, therefore it cannot receive answer and clear signals. Consequently line signaling is required in addition to interregister signaling. Either en-bloc or overlap signalling may be used. In en-bloc signaling the complete address information is transferred from one register to the next as a single string of digits. Thus no signal is sent until the complete address information has been received. In overlap signaling, digits are sent out as soon as possible enabling signaling to take place simultaneously on two links. Also link by link or end to end signaling may be employed. In link by link signaling, information is exchanged only between adjacent registers in a multi-link connection. In end to end signaling, the originating register controls the setting up of a connection until it reaches its final destination.

Fig. Link-by-link and End-to-end signalling between registers

Common channel signalling:

In common channel signaling, there is a separate data link between the two processors in two different exchanges. All signals between these two exchanges are transmitted via this data link. It gives the following advantages: Information can be exchanged between the processors much more rapidly than when channelassociated signaling is used.
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3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks As a result, a much wider repertoire of signals can be used and this enables more services to be provided to the customers. Signals can be added or changed by software modification to provide new services. There is no longer any need for line signaling equipment on every junction which results in a considerable cost saving. Since there is no line-signalling, the junctions can be used for calls from B to A in addition to calls from A to B. Signals relating to a call could be sent while the call is in progress. Signals between two processors can be exchanged for functions other than call processing, for example for maintenance or network management purposes. For a common channel signal, the reliability needs to be much greater than channel-associated signalling because failure of data link could prevent any calls to be made between the two exchanges. CCS does not provide an inherently checking facility. Therefore a separate means of checking the functioning of speech circuits must be employed.
Exchange A
Switching network Junction Forward signals

Exchange B
Switching network

Processor

Backward signals

Processor

Fig. Channel associated signalling between central processors Exchange A

Junction

Exchange B

Switching network

Switching network

Processor Signalling link

Processor

Fig. Common channel signalling between central processors

In multi-exchange network there will be many CCS links between exchanges and they form a signalling network. In principle, CCS networks can pass through different routes from the connections which they control and they can pass through several intermediate nodes in the signaling network. This is called non-associated signalling. here the messages must include labels containing their destinations.

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In practice, CCS messages are usually only routed through one intermediate node. This is known as quasi-associated signalling. The intermediate node is called signal transfer point (STP). Since CCS signals may be routed via an STP, each message contains a destination point code and also an originating point code. The transmission bearers used for a CCS network are channels in the main transmission bearer network.

CCITT signalling system no.7:

This was the first CCS system to be standardized internationally. This was used in analog networks and it used bit rates of 2.4kbits/s and 4.8kbits/s. it used modems to transmit over analog telephone channels. It used fixed size signal units of 28bits. A later version for use in digital networks added four padding bits to be compatible with 8bit PCM time slots. However this has now been replaced by the CCITT signalling system no.7.

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High-level data-link control protocol (HDLC):

Flag Address Control Information Check Flag

1 octet

1 or 2 octets 1 octet

variable

2 octets

1 octet

fig. Frame structure for high-level data-link control (HDLC) protocol

The level 2 protocol used in the CCITT no.7 signalling uses the international standard known as high level data-link control (HDLC). Messages are sent by packets contained within frames having the format shown above. The beginning and end of each HDLC message is indicated by a unique combination of digits(01111110) known as a flag. These sequence of digits can occur in the message also and must not be interpreted as a flag. This is done by 0 bit insertion and deletion which is also called stuffing and unstuffing respectively. When sending digits of a message between two flags, the sending terminal inserts a 0 after every sequence of five consecutive 1s. the receiving terminal deletes this 0. The opening flag is followed by bit fields for address and control information followed by the data field containing the message information. Between the data and the closing fields, there is an errorcheck field, which enables the receiving system to detect if the frame is erroneous and request retransmission. Signal messages are passed from the central processor of the sending exchange to the CCS system. This consists of 3 micro-processor based sub-systems: 1. signalling control subsystem 2. signalling transmission subsystem 3. error control subsystem The signalling control subsystem structures the messages in the appropriate format and queues them for transmission. Messages are then passed to the signalling termination subsystem, where complete signal units (SU) are assembled using sequence numbers and check bits generated by the error control subsystem. At the receiving terminal, the reverse sequence is carried out. The system can be modeled as a stock of protocols: 1. Level 1: The physical level It is the means of sending bit-streams over a physical path. It uses time slot 16 of a 2Mbit/s PCM system or time slot 24 of a 1.5Mbit/s system. Level 2: Data-link level:

2.

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3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks It performs the function of error control, link initialization, error-rate monitoring, flow control and de-lineation of messages. 3. Level 3: Signalling network level: It provides functions required for a signaling network. Each node in the network has a signal point code which is a 14 bit address. Every message contains the point code of the originating and terminating nodes for that message. 4. Level 4: User level: This must be fully compatible with the level 3 of the model.

Signal units:
Information that has to be sent in structures into a signal unit (SU) by the signalling control unit. The SU is based on the HDLC protocol. SUs are of 3 types: 1) The message signal unit (MSU): This transfers information supplied by a user port (level 4) via the signaling network level (level 3). 2) The link-status signal unit(LSSO): This is used for link initialization and error control 3) The fill-in signal unit(FISU): This is sent to maintain alignment when there is no signal traffic. The format of MSU is shown below: Flag 8 BSN 7 BIB 1 7 FSN FIB 6 LI 2 Spare 8 SIO 8n SIF 16 8 Check Flag

fig. Message signalling unit

Flag 8

BSN 7 1

BIB 7

FSN 1

FIB 6

LI 2

Spare 8 or16

SF 16

Check 8

Flag

fig. Link status signalling unit

Flag 8

BSN 7 1

BIB 7

FSN 1

FIB 6

LI 2

Spare 16

Check 8

Flag

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3 Telecommunication Switching and Networks fig. Fill-in unit SF: status field SIF: signaling information field SIO: service information octet LI: length indicator BIB: backward indicator bit BSN: backward sequence number FIB: forward indicator bit FSN: forward sequence number

Fig. Format of signal units in CCITT no.7 signalling system

Messages are of variable length and are sent in 8-bytes as follows: 1) Opening and closing flags are used to delimit signals. They have the code pattern 01111110. 2) The forward indicator bit (FIB), backward indicator bit (BIB), forward sequence number (FSN) and backward sequence number (BSN) are used for error correction. 3) The length indicator (LI) gives the length of the SU. Value of LI greater than 2 indicates that the SU is a message signal unit. 4) The service information octet (SIO) indicates the user port appropriate to the message. 5) The signalling information field (SIF) may consist of upto 272 octets and contains the information to be transmitted. 6) The error-check field is immediately before the closing flag. It contains 16 bits generated as a cyclic redundancy check code.

Introduction
The specification of SS7 started during 1970s when it started to become clear that the future switching systems would be program controlled, that their switching fabrics would also be implemented in silicon and closer to the end of the decade that even subscriber access in those switching systems would be digital. AT&T, RBOCs, BT, other European and Japanese operators played key roles in specifying SS7. They sought to remove the limitations of analogue signaling systems that were in use in electromechanical switching systems in their networks. The limitation included: a limited set of signals, difficulty of signaling after call setup, difficulty of signaling independent of the voice circuit, high level of use of network capacity because of slow signaling and dedicated signaling resources Specification of SS7 took place in parallel and even earlier than the work on OSI in the International Standardization Organization. The same principle of hierarchical layers as in OSI was used in both. However, the purpose and the design goals of the two protocol sets are different and as a result there are significant differences in the allocation of functions on different layers in OSI and levels in SS7

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There are two variants of SS7. One for ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and the other for ANSI markets. The latter is mainly in use in the Americas, South Korea and Japan. This presentation is mainly based on ETSI specifications and makes only marginal references to ANSI.

Design considerations
The solution to the limitations of analogue signaling was a fully digital,message based system that could carry all kinds of information needed for network services. Moreover, to make signaling independent of voice circuits it was obvious that an out-of-band or common channel signaling was needed.Common channel refers to the idea that one timeslot allocated for signaling will carry all signaling needed for many voice slots and even for many PCM lines. Let us verify this idea.

Let us assume that 1000 bits are needed on average for signaling for a single call 2. Let us further assume that an average call takes 3 minutes. It is easy to calculate that a PCM line can carry no more than 30 call minutes in a minute and each call minute on average will create 333 signaling bits. For a PCM full of calls this would give a total of 10 kbit/minute = 167 bit/s.

It follows for this simple calculus that one 64 kbit/s timeslot can carry call signaling for many PCM lines. If we take as the dimensioning criteria that signaling channels should be filled not more than 20% of the time, the number of PCM-lines we can serve with a single signaling timeslot would be: Nrof PCM lines = 0,2 * 64 000/167 = 76 2300 timeslots.

On the other hand, let us recall the discussion on the structure and capacity of an exchange. We gave an example of an exchange with 8000 PCM lines and calculated that about 7000 of them might be used for connections to other exchanges. What if there are e.g. 1000 PCM lines connecting two exchanges.

These PCMs would carry the maximum of: 1000 30 = 30 000 timeslots or simultaneous telephone calls.

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With our earlier assumptions, one signaling channel can support approximately 76 PCM lines and ca. 14 signaling channels would be required to support the call traffic on 1000 PCM lines with 30 000 timeslots.

The above calculus is not meant to be exact but rather show the orders of magnitude of in capacity requirements for signaling and the carriage of voice. Another major consideration in SS7 design was reliability of signaling. During 1970s operators and users were used to noisy transmission. On the other hand from the business perspective a lost or misrouted call may mean lost revenue for the operator or an unsatisfied subscriber.

Below fig shows the telephone network service reliability as a serial reliability diagram depicting that all the boxes must work for the service to work. For such a system the weakest link determines the reliability of the whole system. By eliminating the impact of signaling with a limited cost it became possible to leverage the expensive long term investment into the voice path transmission plant and the operators other infrastructure.

It follows from the reliability requirements that it would be unacceptable to loose signaling connectivity between two exchanges that between them carry for example 1000 simultaneous calls because of a failure of a single signaling channel (even 100 simultaneous calls might trigger to say the same). Also sometimes a connection between two exchanges uses more than 80 PCM lines. From these two considerations, we have a requirement that signaling channels need to be able to replicate each other and also share load. Replication means that it should be possible detect signaling channel failures quickly and to automatically move the load off the failed signaling channel to another channel that has been preconfigured to handle the load. Sharing the load means that at least it must be possible to split the PCMs between two exchanges onto different signaling channels. This split can be a configuration matter because adding and reducing the number of PCMs between two exchanges is not a frequent event and always requires management actions from the operator.

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SS7 concepts
SS7 defines a signaling network that is made of signaling points (network nodes) and signaling links. In practice most times a signaling link is a PCMtimeslot.Among the signaling points from a call perspective are the originating point (OP) and the destination point (DP). Obviously, addresses of the OP and DP need to appear in signaling messages. These addresses are called signaling point codes. OPC stands for Originating Point Code and DPC for Destination Point Code. SS7 also specifies that intermediate signaling points that do not process the call itself may appear on the way from the OP to the DP. These intermediate points are called Signaling Transfer Points or STPs and work either on MTP or SCCP levels. These are useful e.g in a large country for the purpose of concentrating or aggregating signaling from a large number of local or transit exchanges to a small set of Intelligent Network (IN) Nodes. We will come back to IN later on this course. In ETSI networks signaling point codes are 14 bits long. In ANSI networks the point codes are 24 bits long. In an ETSI signaling network there may be some 16 000 unique point codes. Since the codes are allocated to Exchanges and not to users, this is quite enough. However, this means that an SS7 signaling network is not global in itself. Instead, the global signaling network is formed from independent islands that each are an SS7 signaling network. The islands are bridged by higher level functions that process telephony signaling. A signaling link is a connection between two signaling points. A signaling link set is a set of signaling links such that all links have the same signaling end points. A sequence of signaling link sets between two end points forms a signaling route. A signaling route differs from a link set because of the possible intermediate STPs. Finally, the set of all signaling routes connecting two signaling points is a signaling route set. These concepts are depicted in below fig

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set and signaling route set help to meet the requirement of high signaling capacity between two large exchanges through load sharing. Because the dimensioning rule is that each signaling link is supposed to carry less than 0.2 Erl during a busy hour, we can always take one signaling channel out of use inredundancy. In Channel Associated Signaling timeslot 16 was dedicated to signaling. The same agreement could be used also for SS7. However, all timeslots in a PCM system except timeslot zero are the same. In a digital telephone network it is up to the operators to configure the use of those timeslots as they please. In Finland, the agreement was that timeslot 1 was reserved for signaling purposes in SS7 networks.

SS7 Protocol Architecture

Figure 5.3 depicts the levels and the user and application parts in the SS7 architecture.

Figure 5.3: SS7 protocol architecture.

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On the left the Figure shows comparison to OSI layers. MTP stands for Message Transfer Part, SCCP for Signaling Connection Control Part, TC for Transaction Capabilities, INAP for IN Application Part, CAP for CAMEL Application Part that is used in GSM for a similar purpose as INAP in wire line networks. MAP stands for Mobile Application Part, BSSAP for Base Station Subsystem Application Part, ISUP for ISDN User Part, TUP for Telephony User Part and MUP and HUP are legacy systems that we do not need to worry about. There is also OMAP that is Operations and Maintenance Application Part. MTP covers two and a half OSI levels. Compared to OSI what is missing is global reachability for messaging. This capability is added with the help of SCCP. MTP + SCCP then together correspond to three lower layers in OSI.The primitive interfaces between levels are left for vendors to design.Therefore, instead of layers we talk about levels. One reason that justifies looser layering in SS7 than in OSI is that performance requirements were seen very important for SS7. Strict layering was sacrificed for the sake of high performance and high reliability. Lets recall that this design decision was made sometime late 1970s or early 1980s and with the level of computing power available at that time was probably reasonable. The task of MTP is to carry signaling messages between exchanges. These MTP messages will carry in their payload Application Part or User Part messages.

MTP service is connectionless, connections ( i.e. signaling links, link sets etc) between signaling points are pre-configured. This is natural, because business relationships are rather stable between operators and telephone traffic is rather predictable. MTP uses DPCs and OPCs for addressing. SCCP uses a richer set of information items for addressing than MTP. Global addressability among telephone exchanges and other network nodes is reached by using routable telephone numbers in SCCP message addressing. SCCP supports both connectionless and connection oriented messaging services. User Parts contain the telephone call signaling functions. Application Parts such as MAP and INAP add non-call related signaling capabilities.Application Parts use the TC services and TC uses SCCP. TUP never uses SCCP but rather sits directly on top of MTP. ISUP may, in principle use SCCP but in practice it does not need it for regular telephony services and thus also in practice relies only on MTP for messaging.

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