Of course, telecommunications are now global and include not only telephony over fixed and mobile networks, but also data - the World Wide Web, e-mail, broadcast TV, video, social networking, etc. In setting out how all of this works it is helpful to understand how the basic telephone networks are structured since they form the basis of all today's telecommunications networks. We will then progressively address the full range of networks and how they link together. This first chapter introduces the principles of telephony, covering the operation of a telephone and the way that telephones are connected via a fixed (wireline) network. We will be considering telephony over mobile and data networks in subsequent chapters.

Chapter Contents:

• 1.1 Introduction
• 1.2 Basic telephony
• 1.3 A telephone network
• 1.4 How does a network set up a call connection?
• 1.5 Waveforms
• 1.6 Summary
• References

Inspec keywords: telephony

Other keywords: telecommunications; telephony; mobile networks; World Wide Web; telecommunications networks; wireline network; telephone networks

Subjects: Telephony