Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
1. It is a complete network framework designed around the concept of common
channel signaling.
2. ISDN defines the dedicated signaling network that has been created to
complement the PSTN for more flexible and efficient network access and
signaling, and may be thought of as a parallel world-wide network for signaling
traffic.
3. ISDN provides two distinct kinds of signaling components to end-users in a
telecommunications network.
(a) The first component supports traffic between the end-user and the network,
called access signaling and is governed by a suite of protocols known as the
Digital Subscriber Signaling System number 1 (DSS1).
(b) The second signaling component of ISDN is network signaling, and is
governed by the SS7 suite of protocols
4. ISDN provides a complete digital interface between end-users over twisted pair
telephone lines. The ISDN interface is divided into three different types of
channels.
(a) Information bearing channels called bearer channels (B channels)
(b) Out-of-band signaling channels, called data channels (D channels)
(c) Control channels (C channels)
5. As shown in Figure, ISDN provides integrated end-user access to both circuit-
switched and packet switched networks with digital end-to-end connectivity.
Fig:Block diagram of an Integrated Services Digital Network. Even though the diagram
iilustrates parallel channels, the TDM-based serial data structure uses a single twisted
pair.
6. ISDN end-users may select between two different interfaces, the basic rate
interface (BRI) or the primary rate interface (PRI). The BRI is intended to serve
small capacity terminals (such as single line telephones) while the PRI is intended
for large capacity terminals (such as PBXs).
7. The B channels support 64 kbps data for both the primary rate and the basic rate
interfaces. The D channel supports 64 kbps for the primary rate and 16 kbps for
the basic rate.
8. The BRI provides two 64 kbps bearer channels and one 16 kbps signaling
channel (2B+D), whereas the PRI provides twenty-three 64 kbps bearer channels
and one 64 kbps signaling channel (23B+D) for North America and Japan.
9. To differentiate between wireless and fixed subscribers, the mobile BRI defines
signaling data (D channels in the fixed network) as control channels (C channels
in the mobile network), so that a wireless subscriber has 2B+C service.
10.Much like the digital signaling hierarchy, several ISDN circuits may be
concatenated into high speed information channels (H channels). ISDN defines
H0 channels (384 kbps), H11 (1536 kbps), and H12 channels (1920 kbps) as
shown in Table.