The PSTN has been around for a long time and its performance is well understood. The technology is mature and the issues regarding the management of the network are, for the most part, also well understood. We can see this in the excellent performance and network availability delivered by the PSTN - a record that is to be envied by some younger network technologies. This chapter considers IP-dial traffic, i.e. customers using their computers to access the Internet by connecting across the PSTN to their Internet service providers (ISPs), using analogue modems or ISDN terminal adapters. The PSTN must attempt to deliver dial tone and connectivity to their PCs, while at the same time protecting the interests of other customers on the network making voice calls.

Inspec keywords: telecommunication network management; ISDN; voice communication; Internet telephony; telecommunication traffic

Other keywords: voice calls; IP-dial; analogue modems; ISDN terminal adapters; dial tone; voice traffic; Internet service providers; network availability; PSTN

Subjects: Computer communications