Primitives THE SIGNALING ATM ADAPTATION LAYER SAAL

126 SIGNALING IN ATM NETWORKS The following address in hexadecimal is an example of the complete ATM address of an ATM switch in the ATM Lab of North Carolina State University: 47.0005.80.FFEA00.0000.0101.1114.400000000223.00. The first thirteen bytes provide the prefix, equal to: 47.0005.80.FFEA00.0000.0101.1114. The next field is the end system identifier ESI; it is populated with the value of 400000000223, which is the IEEE MAC address of the switch. The final field is the selector SEL , which is populated with the value 00.

5.6 THE FORMAT OF THE SIGNALING MESSAGE

The format of the signaling message is shown in Figure 5.11. This message format is used by the signaling protocols Q.2931, Q.2971, and PNNI. The protocol discriminator field is used to identify the signaling protocol. Bytes 3 to 5 give the call reference number to which the signaling message pertains. This is simply a number assigned to each call i.e., connection by the side that originates the call. It is a unique number that has local significance, and it remains fixed for the lifetime of the call. After the call ends, the call reference value is released and it can be used for another call. The call reference value is used by the signaling protocol to associate messages to a specific call, and it has nothing to do with the VPIVCI values that will be assigned to the resulting ATM connection. The length of the call reference value is indicated in byte 2. For instance, 0011 indicates a 3-byte length. Since the call reference value is selected by the side that originates the call, two calls originating at the opposite sides of the interface might have the same call reference value. The call reference flag, in byte 3, is used to address this problem. Specifically, the side that originates the call sets the flag to 0 in its message, whereas the destination sets the flag to 1 when it replies to a message sent by the originating side. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Protocol discriminator 0 0 0 0 length of call ref. value Flag Call reference value Call reference value Call reference value Message type Message type Message length Message length variable length information elements byte 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ≥ 10 Figure 5.11 The signaling message format. THE SIGNALING PROTOCOL Q.2931 127 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 IE identifier Length of IE IE specific information byte 1 2 3 4 ≥ 5 IE instruction Length of IE Figure 5.12 The structure of an information element. The message type field of the signaling message, bytes 6 and 7, is used to identify the type of the signaling message. The message length field, bytes 8 and 9, is used to indicate the length of the signaling message, excluding the first nine bytes. Typically, there is a variety of information that has to be provided with each signaling message. This information is organized into different groups, known as information elements IE. Each signaling message contains a variable number of information elements, which are appended to the signaling message starting at byte 10. The total length of all of the information elements appended to a signaling message is given in the message length field. The structure of an information element is shown in Figure 5.12. The first byte contains the IE identifier, which is used to uniquely identify the information element. The second byte contains various fields, such as the coding standard, i.e., ITU-T, ISOIEC, national, network specific standard private or public, and the IE action indicator. Bytes 3 and 4 give the length of the information element, excluding the first four bytes, and the remaining bytes starting at byte 5 contain the information specific to the IE.

5.7 THE SIGNALING PROTOCOL Q.2931

This protocol establishes a point-to-point SVC over the private UNI in real-time. In this section, we first examine the information elements used in the Q.2931 messages, and then we describe the Q.2931 messages and we show how they are used to establish and terminate a call. The terms calling user or party and, conversely, called user or party are used interchangeably. The calling user is a user in the end device that initiates a call, and the called user is the user at the end device that is being called.

5.7.1 Information Elements IE

Each signaling message contains a variety of information organized into different groups, known as information elements IE. The following are some of the information elements used in Q.2931 messages: • AAL parameter IE : Indicates the AAL parameter values used between the end devices. • ATM traffic descriptor IE : Specifies the traffic parameters in the forward and backward direction of the connection. • Broadband bearer capability IE : Used to define the ATM service requested for a new connection. 128 SIGNALING IN ATM NETWORKS • Broadband high-layer IE, broadband low-layer IE : Used to check compatibility by the called user. • Broadband repeat indicator IE : Indicates how repeated IEs are to be interpreted. • Call state : Describes the current status of the call. • Called party number IE, and called party subaddress IE : Identify the called user. • Calling party number IE, and calling party subaddress IE : Identify the calling user. • Cause IE : Describes the reason for generating certain messages and indicates the loca- tion of the cause originator. • Connection identifier IE : Identifies the VPIVCI allocated to the connection at the UNI. • End-to-end transit delay IE : Indicates the maximum acceptable transit delay and the cumulative transit delay to be expected for the connection. • Extended QoS parameters IE : Specifies the acceptable values and the cumulative values of some of the QoS parameters. • Transit network selection IE : Identifies a transit network that the call can cross. An ATM end device or an ATM switch might not be able to process every information element included in a signaling message. In this case, the ATM equipment simply uses only the information elements that it needs, and it ignores the rest of them.

5.7.2 Q.2931 Messages

The Q.2931 messages can be grouped into the following three categories: call estab- lishment, call clearing, and miscellaneous. The messages for each category are given in Table 5.2. Each Q.2931 message uses the signaling message format described in Section 5.6, with the protocol discriminator set to 00001001, and contains a set of infor- mation elements. Below, we describe the function of each message, and then we show how they are used to establish and clear a call. • ALERTING : This message is sent by the called user to the network and by the network to the calling user to indicate that “called user alerting” has been initiated. Called user Table 5.2 Q.2931 messages. Message category Message Call establishment messages ALERTING CALL PROCEEDING CONNECT CONNECT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT SETUP Call clearing messages RELEASE RELEASE COMPLETE Miscellaneous messages NOTIFY STATUS STATUS ENQUIRY