Integrated Services Digital Network

MSc in Software Development

Telecommunications Elective

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 1
 Introduction
• ISDN is a digital transport and signalling systems
• ISDN defines a vendor independent interface
between the user (telephones, PBXs, computers)
and the network
• The operations inside the network are typically
governed by the common channel signalling
system No. 7
• ISDN was designed primarily for circuit-switched
voice traffic and secondarily for all other aspects
of data communication

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 2
 Interfaces and Functional Groupings
• The ISDN user interface can be divided into two
areas
– Functional Groupings
– Reference Points
• Functional groupings (TE, TA, NT2, etc.) are a set
of capabilities needed in an ISDN user access
interface
• Reference points (R, S, T, and U) are the
interfaces dividing the functional groupings.
Usually a reference point is a physical interface
between two pieces of equipment

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 3
 Interfaces and Functional Groupings

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 4
 Functional Groupings
• The end-user ISDN terminal is identified by TE1
• TA allows non-ISDN terminals TE2 to operate
over ISDN lines
• NT1 connects the four-wire user equipment to the
two-wire interface to the line terminal/exchange
termination. NT1 implements the physical layer
only.
• NT2 includes an implementation of layer 2 and
layer 3 and is typically found in a PBX. It allows
to connect to an ISDN Primary Rate Interface

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 5
 Reference Points

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 6
 ISDN Logical Channel Concept
• ISDN employs time division multiplexing on its physical
channels
• Time slots in ISDN are named either B or D, depending on
the type of logical channel the utilises them – D slot carries
signalling or user data, B slot carries only user data traffic
• Example of ISDN logical channels
– D channel: 16 or 64 kb/s
– B channel: 64kb/s
– H channel: Aggregate of B channels
• H0: 384kb/s (6 B channels)
• H11: 1536 kb/s (24 B channels)
• H12: 1920 kb/s (30 B channels)

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 7
 Typical ISDN Configuration

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 8
 ISDN Layers
• ISDN only supports layer 1 to 3 of the OSI model
• ISDN service provision is divided into
– Bearer service – layers 1 to 3
– Teleservice – all 7 layers
• Layer 1 supports either
– Primary Rate Interface (PRI) – 31B+D, I.431
– Basic Rate Interface (BRI) – 2B+D, I.430
• Layer 2 is standardised in Q.921
• Layer 3 is standardised in Q.931
– Establishes, maintains and releases ISDN connections

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 9
 BRI Configurations
• BRI is configured as a point-to-point or multipoint
topology at the S/T reference point (the U
interface does not support multipoint)
• Point-to-point for dial-up connection, multipoint
where multiple terminals share one physical
channel
• Terminals are identified by Terminal Equipment
Identifier (TEI) and Service Access Point
Identifier (SAPI) at layer 2 (LAPD protocol)
• TEI and SAPI determine the data link connection
identifier (DLCI)

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 10
 BRI Configurations

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 11
 Terminal Endpoint Identifiers
• 7 bit TEI defines either single terminal or multiple
terminals – TEI is assigned through separate
procedure
• TEI of all 1s identifies broadcast connection
• TEI of 0 to 63 make up fixed TEIs and are
assigned prior to a terminal logging on an
accessign the ISDN channel
• TEI of 64 to 126 are assigned automatically by the
network during logon
• TEI of 127 is used during assignment procedure

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 12
 Service Profiles
• SAPI identifies the entity where data link layer provides
services to layer 3
• Layer 3 access services through SAPI using primitives
• Layer 2 uses SAPI to identify which layer 3 entity will
receive data
SAPI Value Frame carries

0 Signalling information
1 – 15 Reserved
16 User traffic
17 – 31 Reserved
63 Management information
Others Not available for layer 2
operation

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 13
 Service Profiles
• In addition to TEI and SAPI, a service profile
identifies and characterises the service that is
offered
• The service profile is carried in a layer 3 Q.931
message and consists of
– Service Profile ID (SPID), send from user to network to
invoke a users particular service profile
– User Service ID (USID), uniquely identifies a
provider’s service profile

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 14
 Terminal Adapter and Rate Adaptation
• ITU-T recognises that the V and X series of
standards will be prevalent for many years as the
end user may want to maintain equipment
investment
• In order to support end user equipment over future
all-digital ISDN based networks, terminal adapter
and rate adaptation has been standardised to allow
support of V and X series equipment over ISDN
networks
• Rate adapter translates between R interface
transmission rates from 300b/s to 56kb/s to ISDN
T/S interface rate at 64kb/s

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 15
 ISDN Layer 1
• Layer 1 provides the physical connection of ISDN
devices
• Layer 1 describes the interface attributes
– Electrical
– Functional
– Mechanical
– Procedural

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 16
 Location of Interfaces on User Premises

NT

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 17
 Line Code

For both directions of transmission on the BRI

pseudo-ternary coding is used as shown below

0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0

Pseudo
ternary

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 18
 Scrambling
• Bipolar with 8 Zeros Substitution (B8ZS)
• High Density Bipolar 3 Zeros (HDB3)

1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0

Bipolar
AMI

0 0 0 V B 0 V B

B8ZS

0 0 0 V B 0 0 V B 0 0 V

HDB3

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 19
 Physical Layer Framing - BRI
• Frames are 48 bit in length and transmitted
between TE and NT every 250µs
• This transmission provides 4000 frames per sec,
which gives a data rate of 192kb/s for the BRI
• 12 bits per frame are overhead so that 144kb/s is
the user rate
• Of the 144kb/s, 2 x 64kb/s are used for 2 B
channels and the remaining 16k/s for the D
channel

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 20
 BRI Frame Structure

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 21
 Primary Rate Interface Frame Format
One multiframe
(repeated every 2ms)

Frames 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
One
frame One frame
(125µs)

32 time slots 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

30 speech
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
channels
Alternate frames
Y 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 frame align. word 0 0 0 0 X φ X X 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Frame 0, first 4 digits 8 bits per speech channels
Alternate frames multiframe-align. word
Y 1 φ X X X X X
no word
Frames 1-15, signalling
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
information
Gross data rate Digits 1-4, channels 1-15
2.048Mbits/s digits 5-8, channels 16-30

The figure above depicts the 32 frame PCM multiplex structure. x, digits not allocated to
any particular function and set to one; y, reserved for international use (normally set to
one); φ, digits normally zero but changed to one when loss of frame alignment occurs
and/or system-fail alarm occurs (timeslot 0 only) or when loss of multiframe alignment
occurs (timeslot 16 only).

In the case of channel associated signalling signals are associated with each channel by
allocating in each multiframe one signalling half-word in time slot 16 to each channel;
thus the 8 bit signalling slot contains signalling information of 4 bits for two channels in
each frame. The figure above shows that in all but the first frame (frame 0), timeslot 16 is
used to carry signalling. Henc in frame 1, timeslot 16 carries the signals realted to speech
channels 1 and 16, in frame 2 it carries those for channels 2 and 17, and so on until frame
15 when it has signals for channels 15 and 30. The next frame is the first of the following
multiframe and the sequence is repeated.
Timeslot 0 in each frame, and timeslot 16 in frame 0 carry synchronisation and alignment
words to ensure that the transmission and reception of the system are synchronous.
When common channel signalling is used the above arrangement is not relevant. Instead,
the capacity of timeslot 16 is made available to the signalling packets as required, and it
is likely that some of the signalling information is not related to the traffic being carried
on the voice channels.

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 22
 Layer 2
• ISDN provides a data link layer for devices
communicating over the D channel
• Layer 2 protocol is called LAPD – Link Access
Protocol D, which is derived from HDLC
• LAPD is responsible for
– Safe delivery of traffic across the link
– Special codes to distinguish start and end of traffic
– Flow control
– Supporting TEI and SAPI to permit multiple terminals
to share a BRI link
– Maintaining awareness of link conditions

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 23
 LAPD Frame

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 24
 LAPD Commands and Responses

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 25
 LAPD Frame Types

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 26
 Example LAPD Operation

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 27
 ISDN Layer 3
• Layer 3 signalling is based on the Digital
Signalling System #1 (DSS1), specified in ITU-T
recommendation Q.931
• ISDN Layer 3 is responsible for establishing,
maintaining, and releasing connections in an
ISDN network
• User data is mapped onto B channels, whereas
Q.931 signalling is mapped onto the D channel

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 28
 ISDN Messages

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 29
 Q.931 Message Format

Protocol Discriminator
Length of call reference
0 0 0 0 Value

Call reference value

0 Message type

Other information elements

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 30
 Information Elements
• Protocol discriminator
• Call reference
• Message type
• Sending complete
• Congestion level
• Cause
• Call state
• Repeat indicator
• Bearer capability
• Channel Identification
• Facility
• Progress Indicator
• Notification Indicator
• Network Specific facilities
• Display

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 31
 Information Elements
• Keypad Facility
• Signal
• Switchhook
• Feature Activation/Deactivation
• Calling/Called Party Number
• Calling/Called Party Subaddress
• Transit Network Selection
• Lower Layer/Higher Layer Capability
• User-to-User

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 32
 ISDN Connection Establishment and Release

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 33
 Adaptation of Q.931 Signalling in other
Telecommunication Systems

© Dr. Dirk H Pesch, Electronics Dept., CIT,

2000 34