Multi-rate services: challenges in network design

The current public switched telephone networks (PSTN) are engineered for services based on a single 64 kilobits per second (kbits/s) channel or DS-0. Demand for more bandwidth has created a need for new advanced services based on multiple DS-0s for a single call. This service will have significantly different traffic characteristics than traditional narrowband (NB) calls. To accommodate this multi-rate (also known as wideband) functionality on current networks, some of the existing network engineering rules (real-time capacity, customer access trunk engineering, inter-office trunk engineering) will require changes.