<communications> (Data Service level) A generic measure of data service rates that can be used to classify the user access rates for various point-to-point WAN technologies or standards (e.g. X.25, SMDS, ISDN, ATM, PDH). They tend to mark off the low and high ends of access rates for these technologies.
DS0 64 Kbps DS1 1.544 Mbps DS1C 3.15 Mbps DS2 6.31 Mbps DS3 44.736 Mbps(where K and M signify multiplication by 1000 and 1000000, rather than powers of two).
Japan uses the US standards for DS0 through DS2 but Japanese DS5 has roughly the circuit capacity of US DS4, while the European standards are entirely different. In the US all of the transmission rates are integral multiples of 8000 bits per second but rates above DS1 are not necessarily integral multiples of 1,544,000 bps.
(08 Feb 1995)