2/24/2015

Transmission Factors in Speech

Telephony

Transmission Factors in Speech

Telephony

The purpose of a telephone connection is to

provide a transmission path for speech
between the talkers mouth and the listeners
ear.

Lecture 5

Transmission Factors in Speech

Telephony
FACTORS
1. LOUDNESS
hearing sufficiently well
The effectiveness of speech
communication over telephone
connections and customer satisfaction
largely depend on the loudness loss of the
connection

1.A Loudness Rating

Predecessors

1.A.1 Reference Equivalent

The unit of measurement was decibel. The
lower the decibel, the louder the connection.
loudness is indicated by Overall Reference
EQUIVALENT.
Where:
ORE= TRE + RRE + intervening losses in a
connection

Recommended ORE was 33 dB(CCITT

Recommendation)

1. LOUDNESS
as loudness loss is increased, the
listening effort is increased, customer
satisfaction decreases
if too little loudness loss is provided,
customer satisfaction decreases because
the received speech is too loud.
***With these, transmission engineers used
many methods to measure and express
loudness loss

1.A Loudness Rating

1.A.1 Reference Equivalent
Example:

CCITT Rec. G.121 recommends that TRE should not

exceed 20.8 dB and RRE should not exceed 12.2 dB

2/24/2015

1.A Loudness Rating

1.A Loudness Rating

1.A.1 Reference Equivalent

1.A.1 Reference Equivalent

British Post Office Survey of Subscriber for % of Unsatisfactory
Calls

Example:

ORE (dB)

% of Unsatisfactory
Calls

40

33.6

36

18.9

32

9.7

28

4.2

24

1.7

20

0.67

16

CCITT Rec. G.121 recommends that TRE should not

exceed 20.8 dB and RRE should not exceed 12.2 dB

1.A Loudness Rating

introduced because of some difficulties with

using reference equivalent.
It has been found that if a connection was
made with a circuit loss of X and without
distortion, the RE of the system increase with
a smaller value than X

CRE=0.0089q2+1.148q-0.48

If ORE drops to about 6 dB, the

subscriber will begin to complain
that the call is TOO LOUD!!

1.A Loudness Rating

1.A.2 Corrected Equivalent Rating

0.228

ORE should lie in the range of 13 18

dB for international connections

1.A.2 Corrected Equivalent Rating

Values of Y (CRE) as a function of q (RE)
Q (dB)
Y (dB)

-10
-10.18

-9
-9.18

-8
-8.18

-7
-7.15

-6
-6.11

-5
-5.06

-4
-3.98

Q (dB)
Y (dB)

-3
-2.89

-2
-1.78

-1
-0.66

0
0.48

1
1.64

2
2.81

3
4.00

4
5.2

Q (dB)
Y (dB)

5
6.43

6
7.66

7
8.92

8
10.19

9
11.48

10
12.78

11
14.10

12
15.44

Q (dB)
Y (dB)

13
16.79

14
18.16

15
19.55

16
20.95

17
22.37

17.50
23.08

18
23.80

Where:
q=reference equivalent, dB

1.A Loudness Rating

Determination of Loudness Rating

1.A Loudness Rating

OLR=SLR +CLR+RLR

The overall loudness rating (OLR) is defined as the

loudness loss between the speaking subscribers mouth
and the listening subscribers ear via a telephone
connection.
The SLR is defined as the loudness loss between the
speaking subscribers mouth and an electrical interface in
the network.
The RLR is the loudness loss between an electrical
interface in the network and the listening subscribers ear.
The CLR is the loudness loss between two electrical
interfaces in a connection or circuit.

2/24/2015

1.A Loudness Rating

Representative Opinion Results for Overall
Loudness Rating (OLR)

THE THREE BASIC IMPAIRMENTS AND HOW

THEY AFFECT THE END-USER
1. Amplitude Distortion (Attenuation Distortion)

defined as the change in attenuation at any

frequency with respect to that of a reference
frequency
result of imperfect amplitude-frequency
response
It can be avoided if all frequencies within
the passband are subjected to the same loss
(or gain).

2. Phase distortion(Envelope Delay Distortion)

Preliminaries:
The velocity of propagation tends to increase
toward band center and decrease toward band
edge(considering that a voice channel is a bandpass
filter)
The finite time it takes a signal to pass through the
total extension of the voice channel or through any
network is called delay.

3. Noise

a. Thermal Noise
b. Intermodulation noise
Causes:

Improper level setting. If the level of an input to a device is too high,

the device is driven into its nonlinear operating region (overdrive).
Improper alignment causing a device to function nonlinearly.

Nonlinear envelope delay.

Device malfunction.

2. Phase distortion(Envelope Delay Distortion)

A modulated signal will not be distorted on passing through the
channel if the phase shift changes uniformly with frequency,
whereas if the phase shift is nonlinear with respect to
frequency, the output signal is distorted with respect to
frequency.
measured by a parameter called envelope dealy distortion(EDD)
EDD is the difference between the envelope delay at one
frequency and that at another frequency of interest in a
passband.

c. Impulse Noise
Impulse noise is noncontinuous, consisting of irregular pulses or noise
spikes of short duration and of relatively high amplitude.

d. Crosstalk
Crosstalk is the unwanted coupling between signal paths.

Causes:

Electrical coupling between transmission media, such as between wire

pairs on a voice-frequency (VF) cable system and on digital (PCM)
cable systems.
Poor control of frequency response (i.e., defective filters or poor filter
design).
Nonlinear performance in analog (FDM) multiplex systems.

2/24/2015

There are two types of crosstalk:

Noise Units

1. Intelligible, where at least four words are intelligible to

the listener from extraneous conversation(s) in a 7-second
period.

Preliminaries

2. Unintelligible, with crosstalk resulting from any other

form of disturbing effects of one channel on another.

-used to measure the relationship between the

loudness or volume of two sounds

Measurement of Crosstalk
1. Far-end Crosstalk
Crosstalk is measured at the end far-end of the cable.
2. Near-end Crosstalk
Crosstalk is measured near-end of the the disturbed pair

1. Decibel (dB)

-a useful unit for expressing the ratio between

two signal powers

dBm

-specifies the actual amount of power, using one

milliwatt as the reference

Noise Units
Examples:

Noise Units
2. dBm or relative to 1 mW

1. If the input signal of a device is 0.01 W and if

the output is 1 W, (a) what is the gain of the
device and (b) what is the gain in dB?

This unit is used to measure the level of a

signal at any point in the network with
reference to 1mW and is defined as

2. If the input signal of the device is 1 W and if

the output power is 0.01 W, (a) what is the
loss of the device and (b) what is the dB loss?

= 10 log

Noise Units

Noise Units

Example:

Example:

What is the level of the signal at the output of an

amplifier if the signal value is 1mW and if the
gain of the amplifier is 3 dB?

What is the level of the signal at the output of an

amplifier if the signal value is 1mW and if the
gain of the amplifier is 3 dB?
Input: 1mW = 0 dBm
Output = input + gain = 0 dBm + 3dB = 3 dBm

2/24/2015

Noise Units

Noise Units

Important points:
1. dBm is the symbol ised to indicate the level of
a signal in the system, relative to 1mW
2. dB is the system used to indicate the gain or
loss in the system
3. dB and dBm can be added and subtracted as
one unit from the other

3. dBrn (dB above noise reference)

This unit is used to indicate the noise level of a
device and it is defined as

= 10

10 ,
dBrn= dB above noise reference level (10-12 is a
chosen reference equivalent to -90 dBm)
-90 dBm = 0 dBrn

4. pWP(picowatts, psophometric)
a psophometric picowatt is a definite amount of
noise power as measured with a psophometric
weighing network
reference is 1 picowatt, 800hz

5. dBw
amount of power in dB, above or below
reference level of one watt

6. dBk
represents the power level in dB above or below
the reference level of one kilowatt.
7. dBv
reference to one volt