History of Telecommunications T-Carrier
4 days ago
- #T-carrier
- #telecommunications
- #internet-history
- T-carrier was a significant digital transmission system developed by Bell Laboratories in the late 1950s for transporting digital signals over copper pairs.
- It operated at 1.544Mbps and was primarily used for communication between telephone exchanges, not directly for customer connections.
- The system used a protocol called Digital Signal (DS), with DS0 representing a single 64kbps telephone channel and DS1 combining 24 DS0s.
- T-carrier infrastructure required repeaters every 6,600 feet, initially designed to replace loading coils in existing telephone cables.
- Over time, T1 service was often delivered over HDSL (a form of DSL) to extend its reach, especially for end-users, using devices called 'smart jacks' for conversion.
- T-carrier played a crucial role in early internet connectivity, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, offering reliable and low-latency connections, though it was expensive.
- Higher bandwidth options like T3 (44.736Mbps) existed but were less commonly used due to cabling requirements, with fiber optic SONET eventually surpassing T-carrier.
- T-carrier's influence persisted in certain contexts, like video gaming, due to its reliable performance, even as faster but less consistent alternatives like DSL became available.
- The system's legacy lives on in modern DSL technologies, which evolved from similar principles but are optimized for higher speeds and coexistence with voice services.