Implementation of an extended functional architecture for IN-based B-ISDN services

Abstract

The provision of services that use Intelligent Network (IN) facilities upon the ISDN infrastructure has been successful from the point of view of both users and operators. This approach is also interesting for the provisioning of multimedia services in the Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN) environment. For such an IN/B-ISDN integration, new IN features need to be investigated to handle more complex service scenarios. This contribution reports on results from the European research project INSIGNIA (IN and B-ISDN Signalling Integration on ATM Platforms) which develops a prototype implementation for a Broadband Intelligent Network. INSIGNIA is supported by the European Union as part of the ACTS programme. The project consortium comprises research institutions and several manufacturers of telecommunication equipment as well as several major European network operators. In this contribution, an overview is given on the general concepts used in INSIGNIA, in particular on a functional architecture adequate for multimedia services. An overview of the actual implementation of a Broadband SSP is given, discussing the usage of object-orientation and the possible amount of design and code reuse. This overview shows that the new functionality can be easily realised by reusing design and implementation of existing switching software.