Discussion of emerging broadband ISDN standards

The basic foundation upon which an integrated services digital network (ISDN) is built is the ability to provide integrated access to a myriad of services through a single interface. Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN) extends these important concepts to provide a universal, long-term transport capability for all services. In addition to highlighting some of the motivations for B-ISDN, the authors briefly discuss the representation of user information for transport across the network. The B-ISDN interface between the customer and the network consists of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) cells that are multiplexed from several logical connections onto one physical interface. The ATM allows information from various services to be transported in the same manner, thereby allowing totally integrated access at the user network interface. Additional operations and maintenance functions may be provided by the physical interface. Efforts of standardization of relevant aspects of B-ISDN technology are discussed. Three proposals presented to the Broadband Task Group of CCIT Study Group XVIII for cell structure and format are summarized. They represent contributions by, respectively, the USA, Japan, and Belgium.<>