E-carrier system

communications A series of digital transmission formats

promulgated by the ITU and used outside of North America and

Japan.

The basic unit of the E-carrier system is the DS0, which has

a transmission rate of 64 Kbps, and is commonly used for one

voice circuit. The E1 format consists of 32 DS0 channels,

for a total capacity of 2.048 Mbps. E2, E3, E4, and

E5 circuits carry multiple E1 channels multiplexed,

resulting in transmission rates of up to 565.148 Mbps.

The E-carrier system is similar to, and compatible with, the

T-carrier system used in North America, but has higher

capacity since it uses out-of-band signaling in contrast to

the in-band signaling or bit-robbing used in the T-system.

(2000-03-10)