Electronics in the suburban and light urban loop networks

Loop electronics has been used in the Bell System on a permanent basis primarily in the rural environment where loops are very long and relief costs are very high. The increasing costs of cable and the decreasing costs of electronics point to increasing application of electronics in suburban and light urban areas. To understand the economics of the permanent use of loop electronics in these new areas, detailed studies have been made of 36 actual telephone company routes. This paper reports the major results of these studies for two basic types of electronic systems, range extension and pair gain. These studies indicate that the use of loop electronics can result in significant cost savings in the suburban and light urban loop networks. Mathematical models are developed based on the detailed results of the application studies to permit generalization of pair gain system applicability.