International standardization of BISDN

The status and technical characteristics of broadband ISDN (BISDN) as they are currently being defined by the International Consultative Committee for Telephone and Telegraph (CCITT) are outlined. Four main aspects of BISDN are considered: the services supported by BISDN, including their impact on end-to-end network requirements; the different protocol layers necessary to build a BISDN capable of supporting the above-mentioned services; the nature of the user-network interface (UNI), including the features necessary to support different customer premises´ configurations; and the network control aspects necessary to allow the protocols and UNI to support BISDN services. The new service opportunities that BISDN will bring to public telecommunications networks are identified.<>