The document discusses Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy (PDH) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) technologies. PDH uses bit interleaving to transmit digital signals over fiber optic and microwave systems where the clocks are nearly but not perfectly synchronized. SDH was developed as standards-based digital multiplexing technology to overcome limitations of PDH like inefficient bandwidth usage. SDH uses synchronous transmission where all network elements are synchronized to a single master clock.