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- ==Phrack Inc.==
- Volume One, Issue Two, Phile #6 of 9
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-
- Toward Universal Information Services Via ISDN
- ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~
- by Taran King
-
- From PROTO newsletter of AT&T Bell Laboratories
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Phase one, the Present.
- ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~
- The local network of today, although still largely voice-oriented, is
- already on the path to Universal Information Services. Lightguide fiber is
- dramatically expanding the capacity of local networks, helping to lower the
- costs and increase the demand for high-band width, Information Age services.
- And public networks are increasingly digital and geared for data and special
- services. For example:
-
- o The AT&T Network Systems 5ESS (TM <riiiight>) switch, designed by Bell
- Laboratories, can serve as the hub of a local deployment of remote modules at
- locations up to 100 miles from a host central office.
-
- o The Integrated Special Services Network (ISSN) is a channel network that
- provides special services, customer control options and digital private lines
- rearrangeable under software control. The ISSN incorporates digital carrier
- terminating equipment such as the D4 Channel Bank, D5 Digital Terminal System
- and Digital Access and Cross-connect System (DACS).
-
- o The New Centrex is bringing greater levels of customer control, improved
- services and a broad range of data capabilities to the business customer.
-
- Today's public networks consist of multiple or overlay networks. The public
- switched network, or circuit network, mainly for voice, is the base network.
- Two kinds of overlay networks provide special services. Channel networks
- carry private lines leased by large customers and transmit much of today's
- data and image traffic; they also handle traffic for network operations
- support. Packet networks carry data communications, while packet switching
- is used internally to public networks for common channel signaling to set up,
- route and take down calls, or to give customers information. "Overlay
- networks help telecommunications companies efficiently meet growing demand
- for digital transmission and special services," says Stan Johnston, Market
- Planning Manager, Network Systems Evolution, in AT&T Network Systems. "Their
- integration into a single network, however, would be still more effective."
-
- Phase two, the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).
- ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
- The ISDN is a concept to which AT&T is committed - and it's the foundation
- for Universal Information Services. The central idea of ISDN, as AT&T
- Network Systems sees it, is to provide an individual user a link to the local
- central office of generous band-width - a digital subscriber line that can
- carry 144,000 bits per second (sure beats 2400 baud!). The band-width is
- subdivided into two 64,000-bit channels, which may carry voice or data or
- both, and one 16,000-bit channel for packetized signaling information or data
- transport. Such a link provides convenient "integrated" network access by
- accommodating voice, data and signaling over a single line. The ISDN will
- make it easier for a customer to get varied services from public and private
- networks. More bandwidth for big customers will be available through another
- ISDN access standard, the extended digital subscriber line, which provides
- 1.5 billion bits per second as 24 channels of 64,000 bits each. In 1986, new
- software from Bell Labs will enable the 5ESS switch to accommodate ISDN-sized
- 144,000-bit channels that standardize and simplify subscribers' use of local
- networks. AT&T is committed to future products that will also be
- ISDN-compatible. Other vendors, too, some of whom already plan to build
- premises, terminal, and other equipment to ISDN standards, will make ISDN a
- cooperative effort. By providing integrated digital access to networks, ISDN
- will make important progress toward the goal of Universal Information
- Services. But overlay networks will continue to divvy up the transport job.
- And messages needing less than 144,000 bits per second will not fill their
- allotted bandwidth, leaving capacity underutilized.
-
- Phase three, Universal Information Services.
- ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
- Rooted in the fertile ground of 5ESS switches, ISDN equipment and
- technologies such as wideband packet transport, Universal Information
- Services will bear fruit during the 1990s. From a single kind of network
- will hang services as different as apples, oranges and pears. Just as
- network access was integrated in ISDN, transport functions will increasingly
- be integrated by powerful new network equipment evolved from equipment
- developed for the ISDN. Where customers once got standard-sized ISDN
- channels, they'll get big bandwidth for large jobs, little bandwitdh for
- small jobs.
-
-