The transmission characteristics of remreed networks have been designed to support a wide variety of switched services. These include local‐ and toll‐switched voice‐message and voiceband data services. Also, looking toward the future, the remreed network has the capability of supporting wideband services such as analog Picturephone® service and T1 bit streams. In a class of space‐division networks, it approaches being an ideal noninteractive extension of the switching‐office cabling. This article discusses the transmission and environmental protection aspects of remreed networks. The objectives and requirements used to control the transmission and protection design for remreed networks are given and the resulting performance characteristics are described.