Performance Requirements for Integrated Voice/Data Networks

This paper addresses top-down end-to-end user-oriented performance requirements pertaining primarily to voice and digital data services. The discussion of requirements for voice parameters accounts for the performance of existing analog and mixed analog/digital networks, as well as the likely effects on performance of short, medium, and long term evolution toward the ultimate all digital ISDN. The requirements for digital data parameters necessarily reflect an evolutionary process which is less consistent than for voice, and therefore these requirements are less definitive in nature. The discussions of voice and digital data performance apply largely to a wide variety of appropriate network designs, transmission schemes, and switching architectures. Both traditional parameters, as well as contemporary parameters associated with new and evolving systems, are considered. The emphasis is on the performance of nation-wide public and private networks, but the paper also considers the constraints of international connections.