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Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a circuit-switched telephone network system, designed to allow digital transmission of voice and data over ordinary telephone copper wires, resulting in better quality and higher speeds than available with analog systems. More broadly, ISDN is a set of protocols for establishing and breaking circuit switched connections, and for advanced call features for the user. In a videoconference, ISDN provides simultaneous voice, video, and text transmission between individual desktop videoconferencing systems and group (room) videoconferencing systems.
ISDN Elements The English term is a backronym which was thought to be better for English-language advertisements than the original, "Integriertes Sprach- und Datennetz" (German for "Integrated Speech and Data Net"). Consumer and industry perspectives There are two points of view into the ISDN world. The most common viewpoint is that of the end user who wants to get a digital connection into the telephone/data network from home, whose performance would be better than an ordinary analog modem connection. The typical end-user's connection to the Internet is related to this point of view, and talk about the merits of various ISDN modems, carriers' offerings and tarriffing (features, pricing) are from this perspective. Much of the following discussion is from this point of view, but it should be noted that as a data connection service, ISDN has been mostly superseded by DSL. There is however a second viewpoint: that of the telephone industry, where ISDN is not a dead issue. A telephone network can be thought of as a collection of wires strung between switching systems. The common electrical specification for the signals on these wires is T1 or E1. On a normal T1, the signalling is done with A&B bits to indicate on or off hook conditions and MF and DTMF tones to encode the destination number. ISDN is much better than this as messages can be sent much more quickly than by trying to encode numbers as long (100 ms per digit) tone sequences. This translated to much faster call setup times which is greatly desired by carriers who have to pay for line time and also by callers who become impatient while their call hops from switch to switch. It is also used as a smart network technology intended to add new services to the public switched telephone network (the PSTN) by giving users direct access to end-to-end circuit-switched digital services. ISDN BRI has never gained popularity as a telephone network in North America and today remains a niche product. However most modern non-VoIP PBXs use PRI T1's to communicate with a Telco class 5 Central office switch replacing older analog 2-way and Direct-in-dial (DID) trunks. PRI is capable of delivering caller ID in both directions so that the telephone number of an extension, rather than a company's main number, can be sent. It is still commonly used in recording studios, when a voice-over actor is in one studio, but the director and producer are in a studio at another location. ISDN is used because of its "guaranteed" real-time, not-over-the-Internet service, and its superior audio fidelity as compared to POTS service. A few companies make video conference call equipment that combine 3 BRI lines, 6 X 64K channels, to create a good quality picture. In Japan, it became popular to some extent from around 1999 to 2001, but now that ADSL has been introduced, the number of subscribers is in decline. NTT, a dominant Japanese telephone company, provides an ISDN service with the names INS64 and INS1500, which are much less recognized than ISDN. In the UK, British Telecom (BT) provides ISDN2e (BRI) as well as ISDN30 (PRI). Until April 2006 they also offered Home Highway and Business Highway, which are BRI ISDN based services which offer integrated analogue connectivity as well as ISDN. Later versions of the Highway products also included built in USB sockets for direct computer access. Home Highway has been bought by many home users, usually for Internet connection as, although not as fast as ADSL, it was available before ADSL and in places where ADSL does not reach. France Télécom offers ISDN services under their product name Numeris (2 B+D) of which a professional Duo and home Itoo version is available. ISDN is generally known as RNIS in France and has widespread availability. The introduction of ADSL is reducing ISDN use for data transfer and Internet access, although it is still common in more rural and outlying areas. In Germany, ISDN is very popular with an installed base of 25 million channels (29% of all subscriber lines in Germany as of 2003 and 20% of all ISDN channels worldwide). Due to the success of ISDN, the number of installed analog lines is decreasing. Deutsche Telekom (DTAG) offers both BRI and PRI. Competing phone companies often offer ISDN only and no analog lines. Configurations In ISDN, there are two types of channels, B (for "Bearer") and D (for "Delta"). B channels are used for data (which may include voice), and D channels are intended for signaling and control (but can also be used for data). There are three ISDN implementations. Basic rate interface (BRI) — also Basic rate access (BRA) — consists of two B channels, each with bandwidth of 64 kbit/s, and one D channel with a bandwidth of 16 kbit/s. Together these three channels can be designated as 2B+D. Primary rate interface (PRI) — also Primary rate access (PRA) — contains a greater number of B channels and a D channel with a bandwidth of 64 kbit/s. The number of B channels for PRI varies according to the nation: in North America and Japan it is 23B+1D, with an aggregate bit rate of 1.544 Mbit/s (T1); in Europe and Australia it is 30B+1D, with an aggregate bit rate of 2.048 Mbit/s (E1). Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (BISDN) is another ISDN implementation and it is able to manage different types of services at the same time. It is primarily used within network backbones and employs ATM. Another alternative ISDN configuration can be used in which the B channels of an ISDN basic rate interface are bonded to provide a total duplex bandwidth of 128 kbit/s. This precludes use of the line for voice calls while the internet connection is in use. Using bipolar with eight-zero substitution encoding technique, call data is transmitted over the data (B) channels, with the signalling (D) channels used for call setup and management. Once a call is set up, there is a simple 64 kbit/s synchronous bidirectional data channel between the end parties, lasting until the call is terminated. There can be as many calls as there are data channels, to the same or different end-points. Bearer channels may also be multiplexed into what may be considered single, higher-bandwidth channels via a process called B channel bonding. The D channel can also be used for sending and receiving X.25 data packets, and connection to X.25 packet network, this is specified in X.31. In practice, X.31 was only commercially implemented in France and Japan. Reference points A set of reference points are defined in the ISDN standard to refer to certain points between the telco and the end user ISDN equipment. 1 Most NT-1 devices can perform the functions of the NT-2 as well, and so the S and T reference points are generally collapsed into the S/T reference point. 2 Inside North America, the NT-1 device is considered customer premises equipment and must be maintained by the customer, thus, the U interface is provided to the customer. In other locations, the NT-1 device is maintained by the telco, and the S/T interface is provided to the customer. Types of communications Among the kinds of data that can be moved over the 64 kbit/s channels are pulse-code modulated voice calls, providing access to the traditional voice PSTN. This information can be passed between the network and the user end-point at call set-up time. In North America, ISDN is now used mostly as an alternative to analog connections, most commonly for Internet access. Some of the services envisioned as being delivered over ISDN are now delivered over the Internet instead. In Europe, and in Germany in particular, ISDN has been successfully marketed as a phone with features, as opposed to a POTS phone (Plain Old Telephone Service) with few or no features. Meanwhile, features that were first available with ISDN (such as Three-Way Call, Call Forwarding, Caller ID, etc.) are now commonly available for ordinary analog phones as well, eliminating this advantage of ISDN. Another advantage of ISDN was the possibility of multiple simultaneous calls (one call per B channel), e.g. for big families, but with the increased popularity and reduced prices of mobile telephony this has become less interesting as well, making ISDN unappealing to the private customer. However, ISDN is typically more reliable than POTS, and has a significantly faster call setup time compared with POTS, and IP connections over ISDN typically have some 30-35ms round trip time, as opposed to 120-180ms (both measured with otherwise unused lines) over 56k or V.34 modems, making ISDN more pleasant for telecommuters. Where an analog connection requires a modem, an ISDN connection requires a terminal adapter (TA). The function of an ISDN terminal adapter is often delivered in the form of a PC card with an S/T interface, and single-chip solutions seem to exist, considering the plethora of combined ISDN- and ADSL-routers. ISDN is commonly used in Radio Broadcasting. Since ISDN provides a high quality connection this assists in delivering good quality audio for transmission in radio. Most radio studios are equiped with ISDN lines as their main form of communication with other studios or standard phone lines. Sample call The following is an example of a Primary Rate (PRI) ISDN call showing the Q.921/LAPD and the Q.931/Network message intermixed (i.e. exactly what was exchanged on the D-channel). The call is originating from the switch where the trace was taken and goes out to some other switch, possibly an end-office LEC, who terminates the call. The first line format is | ||||||||
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