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Encyclopedia > Intelligent network

The Intelligent Network or I.N., as it is more commonly referred to, is a network architecture for both fixed and mobile telecommunication networks. It allows operators to differentiate themselves by providing value-added services in addition to the standard telecoms services such as GSM services on mobile phones. It can also be regarded as an overlay on the core network. The Global System for Mobile Communications, GSM (original acronym: Groupe Spécial Mobile) is the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. ... Copy of the original phone of Graham Bell at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris Telecommunication is the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. ... GSM services are a standard collection of applications and features available to mobile phone subscribers all over the world. ...

Contents

Overview

The IN concepts, architecture and protocols were developed originally as standards by the ITU-T which is the standardization committee of the International Telecommunication Union. The aim of the IN was to enhance the core telephony services offered by traditional telecommunications networks, "IN is most inportant in telecom network because it allows user of one network to call or access user of different undertakind , IN also make different of one mobile oprtator to other for new value addded services" which usually amounted to making and receiving voice calls, sometimes with call divert. This would then provide a way for operators to build services in addition to those already present on a standard telephone exchange. Examples of the kind of custom services which could be offered are: The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. ... Standardization, in the context related to technologies and industries, is the process of establishing a technical standard among competing entities in a market, where this will bring benefits without hurting competition. ... The International Telecommunication Union (ITU; French: Union internationale des télécommunications, Spanish: Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones) is an international organization established to standardize and regulate international radio and telecommunications. ... A telephone company (or telco) provides telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications. ... In the field of telecommunications, a central office houses equipment that is commonly known as simply a switch, which is a piece of equipment that connects phone calls. ... Custom Local Area Signaling Services (CLASS) are PSTN telephony intelligent network services beyond simple voice transfer, such as caller ID (automatic number identification (ANI)), caller number blocking, automated call return, call blocking or screening, TCAP services, etc. ...

A complete description of the IN emerged in a set of ITU-T standards named Q.1210 to Q.1219, or Capability Set One (CS-1) as they became known. The standards defined a complete architecture including the architectural view, state machines, physical implementation and protocols. They were universally embraced by telecom suppliers and operators, although many variants were derived for use in different parts of the world (see Variants below). This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Prepaid telephone calls are a popular way of making telephone calls which allow the caller to control spend and not be tied into ongoing commitments with the telephone operator. ... The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. ...


Following the success of CS-1, further enhancements followed in the form of CS-2. Although the standards were completed, they were not as widely implemented as CS-1, partly because of the increasing power of the variants, but also partly because they addressed issues which pushed traditional telephone exchanges to their limits. In the field of telecommunications, a central office houses equipment that is commonly known as simply a switch, which is a piece of equipment that connects phone calls. ...


Key Concepts

Intelligent Network schematic diagram
Intelligent Network schematic diagram

The initial, and still the most important use of IN technology has been for number translation services, e.g. when translating toll free numbers to regular PSTN numbers. But much more complex services have since been built on IN, such as CLASS and prepaid telephone calls. Image File history File links IntelligentNetwork. ... Image File history File links IntelligentNetwork. ... The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the concatenation of the worlds public circuit-switched telephone networks, in much the same way that the Internet is the concatenation of the worlds public IP-based packet-switched networks. ...


The main concepts surrounding IN services or architecture are:

  • Service Switching Function (SSF) or Service Switching Point (SSP) This is co-located with the telephone exchange itself, and acts as the trigger point for further services to be invoked during a call. The SSP implements the Basic Call State Machine (BCSM) which is a Finite state machine that represents an abstract view of a call from beginning to end (off hook; dialling; answer; no answer; busy; hang up etc). As each state is traversed, the exchange encounters Detection Points (DPs) at which the SSP may invoke a query to the SCP to wait for further instructions on how to proceed. This query is usually called a trigger. Trigger criteria are defined by the operator and might include the subscriber calling number or the dialled number.
  • Service Control Function (SCF) or Service Control Point (SCP) This is a separate set of platforms that receive queries from the SSP. The SCP contains service logic which implements the behaviour desired by the operator. During service logic processing, additional data required to process the call may be obtained from the SDF. The logic on the SCP is created using the SCE.
  • Service Data Function (SDF) or Service Data Point (SDP) This is a database that contains additional subscriber data, or other data required to process a call. For example, the subscribers prepaid credit which is remaining may be an item stored in the SDF to be queried in real time during the call. The SDF may be a separate platform, or is sometimes co-located with the SCP.
  • Service Creation Environment (SCE) This is the development environment used to create the services present on the SCP. Although the standards permit any type of environment, it is fairly rare to see low level languages like C used. Instead, proprietary graphical languages have been used to enable telecom engineers to create services directly.
  • Specialized Resource Function (SRF) or Intelligent Peripheral (IP) This is a node which can connect to both the SSP and the SCP and delivers additional special resources into the call, for example play voice announcements or collect DTMF tones from the user.IP is not a database; connection to exchange not via SS7, instead via digital TDM channels.

In the field of telecommunications, a central office houses equipment that is commonly known as simply a switch, which is a piece of equipment that connects phone calls. ... Fig. ... C is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ... Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF), also known as Touch Tone® is used for telephone signaling over the line in the voice frequency band to the call switching center. ... Signalling System #7 is a set of protocols defined by ITU-T, specifically in the Q.7* set of documents, used to set up telephone calls. ...

Protocols

The core elements described above use standard protocols to communicate with each other. The use of standard protocols allows different manufacturers to concentrate on different parts of the architecture and be confident that they will all work together in any combination.


The interfaces between the SSP and the SCP are SS7 based and may look familiar to those familiar with TCP/IP protocols. In fact, the SS7 protocols implement much of the OSI seven-layer model. This means that the IN standards only had to define the application layer which was called the Intelligent Networks Application Part or INAP. The INAP messages are encoded using ASN.1. Signalling System #7 is a set of protocols defined by ITU-T, specifically in the Q.7* set of documents, used to set up telephone calls. ... It has been suggested that Internet Protocols be merged into this article or section. ... Signalling System #7 is a set of protocols defined by ITU-T, specifically in the Q.7* set of documents, used to set up telephone calls. ... The application layer is the seventh level of the seven-layer OSI model. ... The Intelligent Network Application Part (INAP) is a signaling protocol used in the intelligent network architecture. ... In telecommunications and computer networking, Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) is a standard and flexible notation that describes data structures for representing, encoding, transmitting, and decoding data. ...


The interface between the SCP and the SDP is defined in the standards to be an X.500 Directory Access Protocol or DAP. However, a more lightweight interface called LDAP has emerged from the IETF which is considerably simpler to implement, so many SCPs have implemented that instead. X.500 is the set of ITU-T computer networking standards covering electronic directory services such as white pages, Knowbot and whois. ... In computer networking, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, or LDAP (IPA: ), is a networking protocol for querying and modifying directory services running over TCP/IP. A directory is a set of information with similar attributes organized in a logical and hierarchical manner. ... The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standard bodies; and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite. ...


Variants

The core CS-1 specifications were adopted and extended by other standards bodies. European flavours were developed by ETSI, American flavours were developed by ANSI and Japanese variants also exist. The main reasons for producing variants in each region was to ensure interoperability between equipment manufactured and deployed locally (for example different versions of the underlying SS7 protocols exist between the regions). The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is a standardization organization of the telecommunications industry (equipment makers and network operators) in Europe, with worldwide projection. ... The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private, non-profit standards organization that produces industrial standards in the United States. ... Signalling System #7 is a set of protocols defined by ITU-T, specifically in the Q.7* set of documents, used to set up telephone calls. ...


However, new functionality was also added which meant that variants diverged from each other and the main ITU-T standard. The biggest variant was called Customised Applications for Mobile networks Enhanced Logic, or CAMEL for short. This allowed for extensions to be made for the mobile phone environment, and allowed mobile phone operators to offer the same IN services to subscribers whilst they are roaming as they receive in the home network. Customised Applications for Mobile networks Enhanced Logic, or CAMEL for short, is a set of GSM standards designed to work on a GSM core network. ... A mobile phone operator (also wireless carrier) is a telephone company that provides phone services for mobile phone subscribers. ... Roaming is a general term in wireless telecommunications that refers to the extending of connectivity service in a location that is different from the home location where the service was registered. ...


CAMEL has become a major standard in its own right and is currently maintained by 3GPP. The last major release of the standard was CAMEL phase 4. It is the only IN standard currently being actively worked on. Customised Applications for Mobile networks Enhanced Logic, or CAMEL for short, is a set of GSM standards designed to work on a GSM core network. ... The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a collaboration agreement that was established in December 1998. ...


The Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) is the variant of Intelligent Network developed for North America by Bellcore (now Telcordia). The standardization of the AIN was performed by Bellcore on behalf of the major US operators. The original goal of AIN was AIN 1.0 which was specified in the early 1990s (AIN Release 1, Bellcore SR-NWT-002247, 1993). AIN 1.0 proved technically infeasabile to implement, which lead to the definition of simplified AIN 0.1 and AIN 0.2 specifications. In North America the SR-3511 (originally known as 1129+) and GR-1129-CORE protocols are used to link switches with the IN systems such as Service Control Points (SCPs) or Service Nodes. SR-3511 is a TCP/IP based protocol which directly connects the SCP and Service Node. GR-1129-CORE is an ISDN based protocol which connects the SCP to the Service Node via the SSP. ... SCP or Service Control Point is a standard component of IN (Intelligent Networks) that is used to control the IN Service. ...


Future

Whilst active development in IN standardization has declined in recent years, there are many systems deployed across the world which use this technology. The architecture has proved to be not only stable, but also a continuing source of revenue with new services added all the time. Manufacturers continue to support the equipment and it is difficult to predict an obscelence window.


Nevertheless, new technologies and architectures are emerging, especially in the area of VOIP and SIP. More attention is being paid to the use of APIs in preference to protocols like INAP and new standards have emerged in the form of JAIN and Parlay. From a technical view, the SCE is beginning to move away from its proprietary graphical origins and is moving towards a Java application server environment. IP Telephony, also called Internet telephony, is the technology that makes it possible to have a telephone conversation over the Internet or a dedicated Internet Protocol (IP) network instead of dedicated voice transmission lines. ... The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an application-layer control (signaling) protocol for creating, modifying, and terminating sessions with one or more participants. ... A application programming interface (API) is the interface that a computer system, library or application provides in order to allow requests for services to be made of it by other computer programs, and/or to allow data to be exchanged between them. ... JAIN is an activity within the Java Community Process, developing APIs for the creation of telephony (voice and data) services. ... Parlay is an open API for the telephone network (fixed and mobile. ... Java is an object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...


References

  • Ambrosch, W.D., Maher, A., Sasscer, B. (editors) The Intelligent Network: A Joint Study by Bell Atlantic. IBM and Siemens, Springer-Verlag, 1989. ISBN 3-540-50897-X. ISBN 0-387-50897-X. Also known as the green book due to the cover .
  • Faynberg, I., Gabuzda, L.R., Kaplan, M.P., and Shah, N.J. The Intelligent Network Standards: Their Application to Services, McGraw-Hill, 1997, ISBN 0-07-021422-0.
  • Magedanz, T., and Popescu-Zeletin, R.. Intelligent Networks: Basic Technology, Standards and Evolution, Thompson Computer Press, 1996. ISBN 1-85032-293-7.

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