| Abstract: | The trend towards integration of services onto a single network and the addition of accompanying control features has led to an increase in the complexity of functional signalling protocols. A continuing dramatic reduction in the cost of traffic-carrying capacity has meant that call control costs are becoming an increasingly significant component of the total network cost. In BISDN, the support of many diverse services may result in an excessive control cost. To avoid this potential problem, virtual paths may be used. Capacity may be reserved on virtual paths to simplify the set-up procedure for individual calls. One benefit of this approach is that the cost of establishing a virtual path is shared among all individual connections which subsequently use it. However, this reduced control cost comes at the expense of installing additional traffic carrying capacity. This paper describes techniques for the management of traffic carrying capacity and control mechanisms in BISDN and presents a cost-benefit analysis to determine policies for reserving capacity on virtual paths. Significant savings in the total BISDN cost can result from the use of virtual paths. |
