WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CENTREX

Centrex is a service originally intended to provide multi-location businesses with the ability to tie their locations together as though (from a telephone standpoint) they were in one location. Universities with large campuses (and multiple campuses), chain stores, and other multi-location organizations have benefited from Centrex.

The big benefit is that phones in the same Centrex group can put callers on hold, transfer calls to other phones in the organization, hold conference calls across multiple locations, even page from one location to another (with appropriate paging hardware).

Accessing these Centrex features usually involves "flashing" the line and dialing Centrex access codes and/or the extension number of a destination phone (usually the last 3 or 4 digits of their telephone number) "Flashing" simply means depressing the hook switch briefly, which signals the Centrex central office that you want to put the caller on hold and access Centrex features. To make line flashing easier, any phone used with Centrex should have a FLASH KEY.

In addition, if you have regular destinations that you send a lot of calls to, you will probably want some one-touch memory buttons to store those destination extensions numbers. And, if you use any Centrex feature access codes, you may want to store these in one-touch memory buttons as well.

Last, to make call transfers easier, you may wish to store frequently transferred-to destinations with a flash, a pause, and the number, all under one memory button; to accomplish this, your phone must have a programmable flash and pause capability.

TECHNOLOGY BASICS     

A conventional Centrex system is a physical and logical partition of a telco Central Office, which is a specialized digital computer system that incorporates a switching matrix for connecting voice calls on a circuit-switched basis.  Circuit-switched calls are temporary, continuous and exclusive in nature.

Once the call is set up through the switching matrix, the bandwidth supporting it is dedicated to that call, and that call only, for its duration. This approach is quite different from that of packet switching, which we'll revisit again in the next column on IP Centrex.

COs are very large circuit switches, commonly comprising 10,000 or more ports. They are designed to support a large number of simultaneous voice grade calls, not only between subscribers within their geographic serving, or Carrier Service Area (CSA), but also to and from the outside world of the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).

As illustrated in Figure 1, the primary physical and logical components of a CO include common control, switching matrix, trunk interfaces and line interfaces.

Common Control is a set of stored program logic that controls the system and its components. Common control consists of multiple microprocessors that operate under a single stored program, which is so tightly secured that it is characterized as bulletproof. As is the case in any computer system, the control processor comprises memory, input/output (I/O) equipment, bulk memory equipment and software.

Switching Matrix design in contemporary circuit-switched COs is based on TDM (Time Division Multiplexing).

Through the use of PCM (Pulse Code Modulation), or perhaps a variation thereof, each analog voice signal is sampled and encoded into a digital format, unless that process has already been performed by the end user's CPE (terminal equipment, Key Telephone System (KTS) or PBX). Multiple digitized voice streams then are multiplexed and sent sequentially over a shared electrical bus, i.e., common physical path.

Trunk Interfaces serve to interface the CO to trunks. In the carrier world, the term trunk refers to a circuit that interconnects carrier-level switches in what is known as the trunk side of the network. So, trunks interconnect COs through intermediate tandem switches; trunks also interconnect tandems.

Trunk interfaces are in the physical form of printed circuit boards (PCBs) that fit into slots, of which there are many on a shelf, of which there are many in a chassis, of which there may be many in a large CO configuration. 

Line Interfaces serve to interface the CO to lines. In the carrier world, the term line refers to a circuit that connects a CO switch to the line side of the network, which is the end user side of the network. So, lines connect COs to single-line and multi line terminal equipment, to Key Telephone Systems (KTSs) and to PBXs.

Line interfaces are in the physical form of printed circuit boards (PCBs) that fit into slots, of which there are many on a shelf, of which there are many in a chassis, of which there may be many in a large CO configuration. 

CONFIGURATION 

There are several possible CO Centrex configuration scenarios, as illustrated in Figure 2. In a typical application, CO Centrex is provisioned on the basis of one voice grade twisted-pair local loop per terminal device. While this approach is very resource intensive, it generally is more cost effective than placing a remote line shelf, multi plexer or concentrator on the premises and connecting it back to the CO via a high-speed circuit such as a T1 or T3.

This latter scenario is a much more efficient use of local loop resources, as a single high-speed circuit can support a great many voice grade calls. A T1, for example, can support 24 simultaneous calls, and a T3 can support 672. In this regard, a remote line shelf is much like placing a PBX on the premises, but with much or all of the common control logic and, therefore, the call processing responsibilities remaining in the CO.

CENTREX FEATURES 

Centrex feature content is a subset of that found in the PBX domain. A PBX, of course, is an end user system. As such, it is designed around the feature requirements of medium and large end user organizations, and those feature requirements can be quite substantial and highly specialized.

A Central Office, on the other hand, is an extremely robust system designed primarily to serve the basic voice communications requirements of large numbers of end users, with emphasis on residential users, rather than businesses. All features place demands on system memory and processing power, with some features being more demanding than others, of course.

As a result, Centrex service providers generally must limit the available features to those which are less resource intensive, but which have broad market appeal and which, therefore, offer considerable revenue and profit potential without compromising the ability of the system to perform its fundamental responsibilities.

Contemporary Centrex systems offer dozens of features, including:

The advantages of conventional Centrex systems can be numerous when compared to conventional PBX systems. These advantages stem from the fact that the telco owns the system, and assumes all the responsibilities that go along with it.

A short list of the burdens of ownership includes the following:

Centrex systems suit certain applications perfectly. Organizations that operate under tight capital budget constraints find Centrex very attractive, with examples being public sector organizations such as federal, state, county and municipal governments; hospitals; public schools and institutions of higher learning.

Highly seasonal businesses find Centrex attractive, since Centrex lines can be connected during the busy time of the year and disconnected when business is slow, and with the capital expenses of supporting communications during the busy season being those of the telco.

Multi site organizations, particularly those confined to a relatively small geographic area, find Centrex highly appealing. A healthcare complex, for example, can include the main hospital, an administration building and a number of clinics, all of which commonly are clustered in an area of a few city blocks.

All of these telephones in these buildings can be served by a single CO Centrex system, with a single user interface and at very reasonable cost. This compares very favorably with the alternative of premises-based KTS and PBX systems, which commonly would interconnected with costly dedicated circuits in a full mesh or partial mesh network configuration. Such an alternative can be very expensive and highly complex.

                WebDesign by: SlickClick™ All rights reserved 1999-2008