Introduction: Network and Service Evolution

Abstract

One can think of the global telecommunications network as a network that consists of three main parts: the core network, the customer premises network and the access network. The core network is the part of the telecommunications network where important operations such as switching, billing and transmission take place. During the last few decades, a number of important trends were started that caused a transformation of the core network, including: a shift from analogue to digital switching and transmission; a year-by-year increase in the capacity of switching systems by using more powerful integrated circuits, microprocessors and software; an increase in the capacity of transmission systems by using optical fibre technologies.