Enhancing B-ISDN signaling to meet the challenge of multimedia services

A key B-ISDN functional principle is the support of a wide range of data, video and audio applications in the same network. Moreover, the network must be flexible and adaptable to meet the demands of current and future services. A set of emerging multimedia services is presented in context of the requirements they impose on B-ISDN signaling protocols. With these multimedia services in mind, we extend the existing B-ISDN access signaling protocol with a set of simplified messages, information elements and message flows. These enhancements support multiconnection and multiparty calls, and the Look Ahead and Renegotiation procedures planned for future ITU-T releases. The issues of protocol evolution and backward compatibility were carefully considered while developing the proposed enhancements