Introduction to Analog Circuits

Analog (in contrast to digital) circuits are still the most common telephone connections worldwide. The phone line to a North American home is most commonly an analog loop circuit, although more and more digital phone services are being installed. Cisco gateways must connect to various analog services to place calls to the PSTN; the analog circuits that Cisco supports are Foreign Exchange Station (FXS), Foreign Exchange Office (FXO), and Earth and Magneto (E&M). This section examines the components of an analog telephone and the signaling methods used by analog circuits.