A framework for integrating management and service in B-ISDN

Summary form only given. Among those phrases that characterize future networks are high speed, service diversity, and integrated environment. As the information transport capabilities increase, it has become possible to provide various kinds of services which were considered almost impossible with existing lower speed transport networks. Also, the use of ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) has paved way to supporting multiple types of communication services using a single type of information transport/switching mechanism. This article addresses the issue of network evolution toward an integrated networking system. It first identifies the architecture of the target integrated networking system and its basic characteristics. Then, the architecture and functional characteristics of the initial stage networking system and evolution direction toward target integrated networking system are described. It describes ATM Highway network which is being developed by Korea Telecom (KT). The initial phase of the ATM Highway architecture is based on the first phase of the evolution step and is designed to make further refinement and extension easy to incorporate in the next steps of the evolution path to an integrated networking architecture.