T-carrier

The T-carrier is a member of the series of carrier systems developed by AT&T Bell Laboratories for digital transmission of multiplexed telephone calls. The T-carrier is a member of the series of carrier systems developed by AT&T Bell Laboratories for digital transmission of multiplexed telephone calls. The first version, the Transmission System 1 (T1), was introduced in 1962 in the Bell System, and could transmit up to 24 telephone calls simultaneously over a single transmission line of copper wire. Subsequent specifications carried multiples of the basic T1 (1.544 Mbit/s) data rates, such as T2 (6.312 Mbit/s) with 96 channels, T3 (44.736 Mbit/s) with 672 channels, and others. The T-carrier is a hardware specification for carrying multiple time-division multiplexed (TDM) telecommunications channels over a single four-wire transmission circuit. It was developed by AT&T at Bell Laboratories ca. 1957 and first employed by 1962 for long-haul pulse-code modulation (PCM) digital voice transmission with the D1 channel bank. The T-carriers are commonly used for trunking between switching centers in a telephone network, including to private branch exchange (PBX) interconnect points. It uses the same twisted pair copper wire that analog trunks used, employing one pair for transmitting, and another pair for receiving. Signal repeaters may be used for extended distance requirements. Before the digital T-carrier system, carrier wave systems such as 12-channel carrier systems worked by frequency division multiplexing; each call was an analog signal. A T1 trunk could transmit 24 telephone calls at a time, because it used a digital carrier signal called Digital Signal 1 (DS-1). DS-1 is a communications protocol for multiplexing the bitstreams of up to 24 telephone calls, along with two special bits: a framing bit (for frame synchronization) and a maintenance-signaling bit. T1's maximum data transmission rate is 1.544 megabits per second. Europe and most of the rest of the world, except Japan, have standardized the E-carrier system, a similar transmission system with higher capacity that is not directly compatible with the T-carrier. Existing frequency-division multiplexing carrier systems worked well for connections between distant cities, but required expensive modulators, demodulators and filters for every voice channel. For connections within metropolitan areas, Bell Labs in the late 1950s sought cheaper terminal equipment. Pulse-code modulation allowed sharing a coder and decoder among several voice trunks, so this method was chosen for the T1 system introduced into local use in 1961. In later decades, the cost of digital electronics declined to the point that an individual codec per voice channel became commonplace, but by then the other advantages of digital transmission had become entrenched. The most common legacy of this system is the line rate speeds. 'T1' now means any data circuit that runs at the original 1.544 Mbit/s line rate. Originally the T1 format carried 24 pulse-code modulated, time-division multiplexed speech signals each encoded in 64 kbit/s streams, leaving 8 kbit/s of framing information which facilitates the synchronization and demultiplexing at the receiver. The T2 and T3 circuit channels carry multiple T1 channels multiplexed, resulting in transmission rates of 6.312 and 44.736 Mbit/s, respectively. A T3 line comprises 28 T1 lines, each operating at total signaling rate of 1.544 Mbit/s. It is possible to get a fractional T3 line, meaning a T3 line with some of the 28 lines turned off, resulting in a slower transfer rate but typically at reduced cost. Supposedly, the 1.544 Mbit/s rate was chosen because tests done by AT&T Long Lines in Chicago were conducted underground. The test site was typical of Bell System outside plant of the time in that, to accommodate loading coils, cable vault manholes were physically 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) apart, which determined the repeater spacing. The optimum bit rate was chosen empirically—the capacity was increased until the failure rate was unacceptable, then reduced to leave a margin. Companding allowed acceptable audio performance with only seven bits per PCM sample in this original T1/D1 system. The later D3 and D4 channel banks had an extended frame format, allowing eight bits per sample, reduced to seven every sixth sample or frame when one bit was 'robbed' for signaling the state of the channel. The standard does not allow an all zero sample which would produce a long string of binary zeros and cause the repeaters to lose bit sync. However, when carrying data (Switched 56) there could be long strings of zeros, so one bit per sample is set to '1' (jam bit 7) leaving 7 bits × 8,000 frames per second for data.