Broadband-ISDN Services and Protocol B-ISDN protocols -User plane, management plane, control

plane, signaling plane, other aspects of B-ISDN: Broadcast service aspects, Network aspects and
user network interface aspects, SONET- An overview.

What is ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)?

A digital communication service provided by telcos. Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is an all-
digital dial-up (on-demand) service that can simultaneously carry high-quality voice, data, and video
transmissions over existing Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) telephone wires of the subscriber’s local
loop connection at speeds of 128 Kbps or higher. Even higher speeds can be reached using data
compression.

How It Works

ISDN is supplied to the customer premises over standard POTS 4-wire twisted-pair wiring and
uses time-division multiplexing (TDM) to send three channels of data (two B channels and one
D channel) over a single communication line (two copper wires). Up to eight data terminal
devices (such as computers, telephones, and fax machines) can be connected to a single ISDN
line. You can set up different data rates based on your local telephone company’s services.

ISDN has its own framing or encapsulation format called V.120, which is the international
standard for synchronous ISDN data stream framing. ISDN frames are 48 bits long and are
transmitted at 4000 frames per second. Each ISDN frame contains two 8-bit slots for the B1
channel and two 8-bit slots for the B2 channel, which alternate with each other and with one 1-
bit D channel slot after each B channel slot. Each B channel thus provides a data transfer rate of
2 x 8 bits x 4000 Hz = 64 Kbps, while the D channel has a bandwidth of 4 x 1 bits x 4000 Hz =
16 Kbps. The remainder of the frame is used for line balancing, echo detection, activation, and
padding.

The two basic types of channels in an ISDN service are

 B (bearer) channels, which are used for carrying either voice or data. The data transmission can
be either packet-switched (such as X.25) or circuit-switched (telco) services. Each B channel in an
ISDN service is completely separate, but you can use a protocol called Bandwidth On Demand
Interoperability Group (bonding) to dynamically join the two B channels in a typical Basic Rate
Interface ISDN (BRI-ISDN) service using inverse multiplexing to produce a single 128-Kbps data
channel.
 D (delta) channels, which are control channels for setting up connections and for other signaling
purposes. For example, ISDN voice communication uses D channels to implement call
forwarding and call display services. The D channel uses a completely separate telco
communication network called the Signaling System 7, or SS7. This out-of-band telco network is
used exclusively for system overhead signaling for ISDN and digital data service (DDS) services,
and it makes possible the low latency of ISDN dial-up connections. For example, it takes only 1
to 2 seconds for an ISDN dial-up connection to be established, compared to 15 to 45 seconds for
a typical analog modem. D channels can also be used to connect to an X.25 network.
The two most common ISDN interfaces or service types available from local carriers are

What is B-ISDN (Broadband ISDN)

B-ISDN (Broadband ISDN) is the broadband transmission counterpart of Integrated Services
Digital Network (ISDN). Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN) encompasses a set of International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) standards and services designed to provide an integrated digital
network for audio, video, and data transmission.

B-ISDN
Instead of using the copper media used in ordinary ISDN, broadband ISDN uses fiber-optic and
radio media. Broadband ISDN is designed to use the cell-switching transport technology of
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) together with the underlying physical transport
mechanisms of Synchronous Optical Network (SONET).

Broadband ISDN standards and technologies are an emerging option for high-speed networking
that promises the capabilities of high-speed digital connectivity for homes and businesses.

B-ISDN History

Before B-ISDN, the original ISDN attempted to substitute the analog telephone system with a
digital system which was appropriate for both voice and non-voice traffic. Obtaining worldwide
agreement on the basic rate interface standard was expected to lead to a large user demand for
ISDN equipment, hence leading to mass production and inexpensive ISDN chips.

However, the standardization process took years while computer network technology moved
rapidly. Once the ISDN standard was finally agreed upon and products were available, it was
already obsolete.[citation needed] For home use the largest demand for new services was video
and voice transfer, but the ISDN basic rate lacks the necessary channel capacity.

SONET stands for Synchronous Optical Network is a physical layer specification for broadband
synchronous transmission of voice, video, and data over long distances of fiber-optic cabling at
speeds of more than 1 Gbps. Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) networks can carry voice,
video, and data simultaneously and are often used by telecommunications providers to provide
the underlying transport mechanism for Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networking in
internal telco and long-distance carrier networks. SONET can also be used as the underlying
transport for Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Integrated Services Digital Network
(ISDN), and Switched Multimegabit Data Services (SMDS) communication.
Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) configuration exampl

How It Works
SONET is built from multiplexed DS0, DS1, or DS3 digital signal channels using optical time-
division multiplexing (TDM) to form a single Synchronous Transport Signal (STS) link for
communication. The basic SONET transmission rate is 810 bytes transmitted every 125
microseconds, and frames are transmitted whether or not a payload (data) is present. A standard
STS-1 SONET data path thus consists of 810 DS0 channels, of which 783 are used for data
transmission and 27 are used for framing, error correction, format identification, and other forms
of overhead.

SONET is usually implemented as a dual-ring topology to provide redundancy and fault

tolerance. These rings are usually self-healing within 50 milliseconds of a break. SONET speeds
are classified by one of the following:

 Electrical signal speeds called Synchronous Transport Signal (STS)

 Optical carrier line speeds called optical carrier (OC)

The following table shows the currently defined SONET speeds

SONET Speeds
Electrical Signal Optical Carrier Speed

STS-1 OC-1 51.48 Mbps

STS-3 OC-3 155.52 Mbps

STS-12 OC-12 622.08 Mbps

STS-24 OC-24 1.24 Gbps

STS-48 OC-48 2.48 Gbps

STS-192 OC-192 9.95 Gbps

SONET configuration issues

These parameters affect the configuration of SONET devices:

Clocking – The clocking default value is line, and is used whenever clocking is derived from
the network. The clock source internal command is typically used when two Cisco 12000
Series Internet Routers are connected back-to-back, or are connected over dark fiber where no
clocking is available. In either case, each device must have its clock source set to internal. For a
more detailed explanation, refer to Configuring Clock Settings on POS Router Interfaces.
Loopback – Loopback is a line and internal (DTE) value. This is a SONET section loopback
if done on the controller. If done on the individual interface, these are individual path loopbacks.
Framing – Most Cisco framers support both SONET and SDH.
Payload scrambling – This value is normally set to On.
S1S0 flag – This value must be between 0 and 3; the default value is 0. With
SONET, s1so must be set to 0, and with SDH it must be set to 2. Value 3 corresponds to the
received Alarm Indication Signal (AIS).
J0 flag – 0-255 – This setting is the section trace identifier. It is only required for section
tracing.
C2 flag – 0-255 – This setting specifies the STS path signal label (5 to 7 are configured with
the pos flag command).

Alarm reporting – Alarm reporting allows you to specify which alarms are reported. The
permitted values are b1-tca, b2-tca, sf-ber, sd-ber, los, lof, ais-l, and rdi-l. (This value is
configured with the pos report command).
Alarm thresholds – The alarm threshholds setting specifies the Bit Error Rate (BER)
thresholds that signal an alarm. (This value is configured with the pos threshold command).

Debugging Synchronous Optical Network

If the link is down/down, check for active alarms and defects. Troubleshooting, in this case, is
essentially the same as serial troubleshooting. If you look at the SONET controller, it can
provide plenty of L1 and SONET information. Defects and alarms in SONET are similar to the
same alarms when you troubleshoot and diagnose T1/E1 and T3/E3 (LOS, LOF, AIS (Blue
Alarm), and so on) issues.

Active defects and active alarms fields show the current status of the POS controller, and point to
the problem.

The numbers for errors under the Section, Line, and Path are accumulators, and tell you the
number of times the condition has occurred; these numbers do not indicate if the error is
currently happening.

Bit Interleaved Parity (BIP) errors are parity errors that correspond to a specific SONET layer:
BIP(B1) corresponds to Line, BIP(B2) to the Section, and BIP(B3) to the Path layer parity errors.
When you look at the output of the show controllers pos x/y command, pay attention to which
SONET layers accumulate errors: SONET Line, Section, or Path. When you troubleshoot
SONET problems or errors, the first thing to do is to isolate the bad section.