ABSTRACT
A telecommunications system is designed to convey information from a point of origin to a point of destination. In almost every case, the information content of the signal is not used by the telecommunications system itself. The system is designed to accept the input data and structure these data into a format that can be moved quickly, economically, and accurately to specified destinations. This structuring of data into a form suitable for transmission often involves the addition of control characters, routing or processing instructions, recording, or even reformatting of the data. The essential notion is that the system accepts the original input data in whatever format, structures the data for transmission, transmits the data to the specified destination, restructures the data back into their original format, and finally makes the data available at the appropriate destinations (i.e., the system is information transparent).
