4B3T

4B3T, which stands for 4 (four) Binary 3 (three) Ternary, is a line encoding scheme used for ISDN PRI interface. 4B3T represents four binary bits using three pulses.

Description

It uses three states:

This means we have 2⁴ = 16 input combinations to represent, using 3³ = 27 output combinations. 000 is not used to avoid long periods without a transition. To achieve an overall zero DC bias, 6 triplets are used which have no DC component (0+−, 0−+, +0−, −0+, +−0, −+0), and the remaining 20 are grouped into 10 pairs with differing disparity (e.g. ++− and −−+). When transmitting, the DC bias is tracked and a combination chosen that has a DC component of the opposite sign to the running total.

This mapping from 4 bits to 3 ternary states is given in a table known as Modified Monitoring State 43 (MMS43). A competing encoding technique, used for the ISDN basic rate interface where 4B3T is not used, is 2B1Q.

The sync sequence used is the 11-symbol Barker code, +++−−−+−−+− or its reverse, −+−−+−−−+++.