Monitoring and Controlling the Public Telephone Network

Abstract

The telephone network is a complex system of switching and transmission equipment to enable any of tens and internationally hundreds of millions of telephones to be interconnected in virtually any combination. To ensure optimum performance various performance criteria have to be agreed and then monitored and controlled. This network management function has to be effective in the presence of rapid modernisation where new generations of equipment have to interwork with older generations in a manner not directly evident to the customer.