The Public Switched Telephone Network, or PSTN, is the worldwide telecommunications network accessible to everyone. It is designed to voice communication services to residences and many other establishments. Parts of the PSTN are also utilized for DSL, VoIP and other Internet-based network technologies.
The basic PSTN network link supports 64 Kbps bandwidth. In residences, the PSTN phone line carrying this bandwidth is typically a copper cable.
The basic elements of the PSTN are:
- Switching Offices that route or switch traffic through the PSTN over transmission facilities.
- Transmission Facilities that provide the communication paths that carries traffic between any two nodes in the network.
- Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) is the user station equipment the customer provides to interface with the PSTN.
