Telecommunications Essentials: The Complete Global Source for Communications Fundamentals, Data Networking and the Internet, and Next-Generation Networks

Chapter 5. The PSTN

This chapter talks about the public switched telephone network (PSTN). It talks about what comprises the PSTN, what sorts of technologies have been used to complete the connections, how the signaling systems operate, and what the basic backbone architectures entail in terms of components and transmission capacities. This chapter also discusses intelligent networks (INs) and what they promise in terms of service logic and feature availability. Finally, this chapter describes some of the trends in the evolution of the PSTN that will support the new generation of applications.