This document provides an overview of telephony basics, including telephone switching, signaling, and the public switched telephone network. It describes key components like central offices, end office switches, tandem switches, and hierarchical versus dynamic non-hierarchical switching. The document also covers in-band and out-of-band signaling methods as well as signaling systems like multi-frequency signaling, R1, R2, SS7, and the North American SS7 architecture using signal switching points, signal transfer points, and signal control points.