ESPA 4.4.

4 Nov 1984

PROPOSAL FOR SERIAL DATA INTERFACE FOR PAGING EQUIPMENT

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

2.1 CHARACTER STRUCTURE

2.2 THE CHARACTER SET
2.3 CONTROL CHARACTERS
2.3.1 Transmission control characters
2.3.2 Information separator characters
2.4 TRANSMISSION CONTROL PREFIXES

3. THE PROTOCOL

3.1 POLLING
3.2 SELECTING
3.3 TERMINATION
3.4 EXAMPLES OF POLL & SELECT SEQUENCE
3.5 TRANSFER OF DATA BLOCKS
3.6 EXAMPLE OF TRANSMISSION OF BLOCKS OF DATA

4. DATA BLOCK DESCRIPTION

4.1 BLOCK STRUCTURE

4.2 HEADERS
4.3 RECORDS
4.4 EXAMPLES OF TRANSACTIONS

5. HARDWARE SPECIFICATION

5.1 DEFINITION OF INTERCHANGE CIRCUITS

5.2 ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS
5.3 CONNECTOR SPECIFICATION
5.4 AUDIO SIGNALS
5.5 BAUD RATES

6. CONVENTIONS

7. GLOSSARY

8. LIST OF REFERENCES

APPENDIX A
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984

1. INTRODUCTION

Telephone systems and paging systems today, are reaching levels of sophistication that
were hardly to be considered just a few years ago. Far more information about subscribers
is available in such systems, enabling more intelligent and more efficient use to be made of
the facilities that are available to caller and subscriber alike.

This information requires a degree of intersystem control above that which has so far been
required and will, as systems become more powerful, require yet more capability from
intersystem communications.

As higher degrees of machine intelligence become available and digital electronic designs
replace the old electro-mechanical systems, so the methods of communication between
systems become oriented towards the rapid transfer of information between such systems.
To this end, ESPA have decided to recommend a serial data interface for paging systems,
which is both powerful and flexible, and opens an extendible path for the future.

The method recommended conforms to ISO 1745 “Information Processing – Basic mode
control procedures for data communication systems”. It uses conventional stop-start
character formats, a ‘handshake’ protocol with error detection, is suitable for half-duplex
operation and may be used via modems if required.

Proposals for a Tieline Type Interface and for a Subscriber Line Interface can be found in
ESPA Publication 4.4.3.

NB: For conventions and a glossary of terms used in this publication see chapters 6 and 7.
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984

2. CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

2.1 CHARACTER STRUCTURE

The data communication is a serial, bit synchronous, character asynchronous format

as defined by ISO 1177, utilising one start bit, seven information bits, one even parity
bit and two stop bits.
1 Logic ST 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 P SP SP
0 level

Start (1)

Data (7)

Parity (1)

Stop (2)

2.2 THE CHARACTER SET

The character set conforms to the international alphabet number 5 (CCITT V3 & ISO
646, see Appendix A) referred to in this text as IA5.

2.3 CONTROL CHARACTERS

2.3.1 Transmission Control Characters

The following Control Characters have a special meaning in the protocol

and will be referred to as Transmission Control Characters.

TC1 SOH start of header

Start of a header of a message

TC2 STX start of text

Precedes a text field and terminates a header

TC3 ETX end of text

Terminates a text field

TC4 EOT end of transmission

Terminates a transaction of one or more texts. Returns control to
the Control Station

TC5 ENQ enquiry

Requests a response from a remote station, may include station
identity

TC6 ACK acknowledge

Transmitted by the receiving station as a positive response to the
sender

TC7 DLE data link escape

Not used

TC8 NAK negative acknowledge

 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984
Transmitted by the receiving station as a negative response to the
sender

TC9 SYN synchronous idle

Not used

TC10 ETB end of transmission block

Not used

2.3.2 Information Separator Characters

Control Characters used to separate and qualify data logically.

IS1 US unit separator

IS2 RS record separator
IS3 GS group separator
Not used
IS4 FS file separator
Not used

2.4 TRANSMISSION CONTROL PREFIXES

A number of these characters may be prefixed to control information at various stages

during the protocol: -

ENQ May be prefixed to the device address for polling and selecting.

NAK May be prefixed to an error identifier if known.

The presently defined errors are: -

‘1’ Transmission error

Corrupt character(s) or corrupt BCC, received by the station (BCC
Block Checking Character, ISO 1155)

‘2’ Busy
Unable to accept a transaction e.g. queue full etc

‘3’ Invalid message

Type or content of message not recognised by this station

ACK and EOT are not prefixed within this protocol.

NB: Character within ‘ ‘ means character according to IA 5.

 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984

3. THE PROTOCOL

The protocol used conforms to International Standard ISO 1745 “Information processing-
Basic mode control procedures for data communication systems”. It is a multi-drop
protocol utilising a Control Station. Typically, the telephone or computer system acts as
Control Station, however, the paging system will act as a Control Station when required.

3.1 POLLING

The Control Station polls a device on the communication line with the sequence
<address> ENQ. On receipt of this sequence, the polled device becomes Temporary
Master Station.

A polling sequence always follows an EOT (see 3.3 Termination)

<Address> is the address of the device being polled

The characters’0’ to’9’ shall be available as addresses. Where only two stations are
interconnected it is recommended that the telephone system has address’1’ and the
paging system has address ‘2’.

3.2 SELECTING

The polled device sends <address> ENQ to select the device to which it has data to
transfer or EOT to indicate that it does not have data to transfer (see 3.3 Termination).
When the polled device sends <address> ENQ, then the selected device sends ACK if
it is ready to receive data. The Temporary Master Station may now communicate with
the selected device that has become Slave Station. If the selected device is not able
to receive data it sends NAK with an appropriate prefix. The Temporary Master
Station then sends EOT to terminate the communication.

A selecting sequence never follows an EOT

<Address> is the address of the device being selected

3.3 TERMINATION

Upon completion of its transaction(s), the Temporary Master Station sends EOT which
both indicates to the Slave Station that transactions are now complete and that control
is returned to the Control Station.

If the Control Station does not detect valid transaction on the communication line within
10 seconds, then it sends EOT to terminate the communication and regain control.
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984

3.4 EXAMPLES OF POLL & SELECT SEQUENCE

Control Polled Selected

Station Code Code Station Code Code Station

No data to be transferred

Poll seq. <address> →

ENQ →
← EOT Negative reply
to polling

Data is to be transferred

Poll seq. <address> →

ENQ → Becomes
Temporary
Master

Select seq.<address> →
ENQ →
← ACK Becomes
Temp
Slave

Comm. line ↔
utilised by
polled device

← EOT End of usage EOT →

Control returns
to Control station

3.5 TRANSFER OF DATA BLOCKS

When a device is a Temporary Master of the communication line it may transfer data to
the slave. When the slave correctly receives a block of data it acknowledges receipt
with the ACK character. If, however, the slave is unable to accept the message, it will
Negative Acknowledge with a NAK sequence (see paragraph 2.4) and the Temporary
Master may then retransmit the block. If, after two attempts, the transmission still fails,
then the Temporary Master will terminate transmission with the EOT character.

3.6 EXAMPLE OF TRANSMISSION OF BLOCKS OF DATA

In this example, the Control Station with address ‘1’ polls itself and is thus able to
transmit to the Slave Station with address ‘2’.

Example of transmission sequence: -

Control Station Code Code Selected Station

Poll sequence ‘1’ ↔

Becomes Temp Master ENQ ↔

Select sequence ‘2’ →

ENQ →
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984
← ACK Becomes Slave

Block 1 →
← ACK Accepted
Block 2 →
← ‘1’
← NAK Transmission
error

Retransmission Block 2 →
← ACK Accepted

Block N →
← ACK Accepted
Terminates EOT ↔ Terminates

4. DATA BLOCK DESCRIPTION

4.1 BLOCK STRUCTURE

Data blocks have the following form: -

Record Separator

Unit Separator

Start of Text

Start of Header

SOH Header STX Data Identifier US Data RS

Data Identifier US Data RS

Data US Data RS ETX BCC

Identifier

End of text

Block Check
Character

The Block Check Character shall be the modulo 2 binary sum of the characters in the
transmitted block excluding the SOH. The longitudinal parity including the BCC shall be
made even.
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984

4.2 HEADERS

The header specifies the type of block (transaction).

The headers are defined in the following table: -

‘1’ Call to pager

‘2’ Status Information
‘3’ Status Request
‘4’ Call to subscriber line
‘5’ Other Information (To be specified by the paging equipment manufacturer)

4.3 RECORDS

The contents and meaning of each record are defined in the following table. Note that
data may have more characters, for example, to indicate a type or subdivision in the
data. In most cases the character ‘0’ is reserved for future expansion e.g. ‘1’ is not the
same as ‘01’ or ‘001’ etc.

Data
Record type Identifier Data Meaning

Call address ‘1’ max 16 Address of the pager or a group

Characters of pagers

Display message ‘2’ max 128 The message to be displayed

Characters

Beep coding ‘3’ ‘0’ Reserved

‘1’ to ‘9’ System dependant

Call type ‘4’ ‘0’ Reserved

‘1’ Reset (cancel) call
‘2’ Speech call
‘3’ Standard call

Number of transmissions ‘5’ ‘0’ Reserved

‘1’ 1 transmission
‘2’ 2 transmissions
etc etc

Priority ‘6’ ‘0’ Reserved

‘1’ Alarm (Emergency)
‘2’ High
‘3’ Normal

Call Status ‘7’ ‘0’ Reserved

‘1’ Busy
‘2’ In Queue
‘3’ Paged
‘4’ Absent
‘5’ Call terminated
‘6’ Ack. from called party
‘7’ Speech channel open
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984

‘71’ Speech channel open (paged)

‘’72’ Speech channel open (absent)
‘8’ Fault indications

System Status ‘8’ ‘0’ Reserved

‘1’ Transmitter failure

A block consists of one or more of the above data beginning with a ‘block type’ header,
with other data in any sequence separated by Record Separators.

In most systems, many of the data have pre-determined default values, in these cases,
only the information which is required to be different to the default value need to be
transferred e.g. for a standard priority call there is no need to send a ‘standard priority’
message.

4.4 EXAMPLES OF TRANSACTIONS

Example 1: -

Standard call to receiver number ‘123’ is to be transmitted 3 times at high priority.

Telephone System Paging System

POLL SEQUENCE
Polls itself
↔
‘1’ ENQ

SELECT SEQUENCE
Selects Paging System
‘2’ ENQ → POSITIVE REPLY TO SELECTING

← ACK

BLOCK 1: →

HEADER
Type of block: Paging
SOH ‘1’ STX
RECORD 1
Call Address
‘1’ US ‘1’ ‘2’ ‘3’

RECORD SEPARATOR
→ RS →RS

RECORD 2
Number of transmissions

‘5’ US ‘3’
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984
RECORD SEPARATOR

RS

RECORD 3
Priority

‘6’ US ‘3’

TAIL

ETX BCC

ACKNOWLEDGE
ACK

TRANSACTIONS
COMPLETE
EOT

Example 2: -

Paging System gives status information concerning a call made by the Telephone
System. The call is identified by call number (123), beep coding (1) and display
message (4567)

Telephone System Paging System

POLL SEQUENCE
Polls the Paging System
‘2’ '2' ENQENQ ↔
SELECT SEQUENCE
Selects the Telephone System
←
'1' ENQ
POSITIVE REPLY TO SELECTING
→
ACK
← BLOCK 1: -

HEADER
Type of block: -
Status information
SOH '2' STX

RECORD 1
Call address (123)
‘1’ US ‘1’ ‘2’ ‘3’

RECORD SEPARATOR
ACK
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984
RECORD 2
'3' US '1'
RECORD SEPARATOR
RS
RECORD 3
Display message (4567)
‘2’ US ‘4’ ‘5’ ‘6’ '7'
RECORD SEPARATOR

RS

RECORD 4
Status (paged)
'7' US '3'

TAIL
ETX BCC

ACKNOWLEDGE
→
ACK
TRANSACTIONS COMPLETE
↔
EOT
Example 3: -

The Telephone System asks the paging system for status information concerning the
progress of a paging call. In order to completely identify the paging call, the
Telephone System must transfer the same information as it did when the paging call
was initiated.

The transaction will be exactly the same as in example 1, except for the header. The
header now specifies that the transaction is a status request.

HEADER
Type of block (transaction): Status request

'7' US '3'

etc as example 1.
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984

5. HARDWARE SPECIFICATION

5.1 DEFINITION OF INTERCHANGE CIRCUITS

The interchange circuits conform to CCITT recommendation X20.

Interchange Interchange
Circuit Number Name

G Signal ground or common return

Ga DTE common return
Gb DCE common return
T Transmitted data
R Received data

5.2 ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS

The electrical characteristics conform to CCITT recommendation V.11

(X.27/RS422/RS485) “Electrical characteristics for balanced double-current
interchange circuits for general use with integrated circuit equipment in the field of data
communications”.

5.3 CONNECTOR SPECIFICATION

The connector specification conforms to ISO 4903 15 way ‘D’ type.

5.4 AUDIO SIGNALS

600 Ohms balanced with respect to earth.

Signal adjustable between –6dBm and –20dBm.

5.5 BAUD RATES

All standard baud rates between 300 and 9600 are available.

6. CONVENTIONS

<> Indicate that the value of the contents is to be considered: e.g. <address> indicates
the address of something, not the word ‘address’.

‘‘ Characters within ‘ ‘ indicate IA 5 characters: e.g. ‘0’ is the character zero which has
the hexadecimal code 3/0.

/ Used as a separator for the upper 3 bits and the lower 4 bits of an IA 5 code. When
shown in this form, characters can be defined using either hex or decimal notation:
e.g. character ‘K’ is 4/11 or 4/B.

↔
← Indicate the direction of data flow: ↔ means bi-directional.
→
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984

7. GLOSSARY

Control Station The station which has overall responsibility for the communication
line.

Data Block A contiguous piece of information passed on the communication line.

Header The identifying field at the front of a data block.

Multidrop A configuration in which a connection is established between more

than two terminal installations.

Polling The process of inviting another station to become a temporary

master station. Performed by the control station.

Selecting Performed by a master station. Establishes a communication

between the master and a slave station.

Slave Station A station which is intended to receive an information message from a

master station.

Temporary Master The station which, at a given instant, has the right to select and to
Station transmit an information message to a slave station.

Transmission Characters from the IA 5 alphabet which are used to control in the
Control Characters process of controlling transmission of data blocks on the
communication line.
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984

8. LIST OF REFERENCES

ISO 646 7 bit character set for information interchange.

See appendix

ISO 1155 Information processing – use of longitudinal parity to detect data

errors in information messages.

ISO 1177 Information processing – character structure for start / stop and
synchronous transmission.

ISO 1745 Information processing – basic mode control procedures for data
communication systems.

ISO 2110 Data communication – 25-pin DTE/DCE interface connector and pin
assignments.

ISO 4903 Data communication – 15-pin DTE/DCE interface connector and pin
assignment.

CCITT V11/X27 Electrical characteristics for balanced double-current interchange

circuits for general use with integrated circuit equipment in the field
of data communications.

CCITT X20 Interface between data terminal equipment (DTE) and data circuit-
terminating equipment (DCE) for start/stop transmission services on
public data networks.
 ESPA 4.4.4 Nov 1984
APPENDIX A

International alphabet number 5 (IA 5)

CCITT V3 & ISO 646