<
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)