The need for an advanced ATM signalling protocol

摘要

In the rapidly moving world of high speed communications many contradictions are always present, this paper examines the problem of the lack of capabilities inherent in the current ATM signalling protocol. While ATM has been designed to cater for a very broad sweep of requirements, very little has been done about an equally broad signalling protocol for ATM. The paper begins by examining ATM and progresses to give a brief overview of signalling systems in general. Included in this overview is the current ATM signalling protocol and an explanation of its development and history. The protocol is then examined to show its weaknesses, which originate mainly from the origins of the protocol itself. With these limitations in mind, ideas on how a new signalling protocol could operate are presented. Most of these ideas concentrate on extending the functionality of the protocol. Finally the paper concludes with the design of a new signalling protocol and discusses some of the issues related to evaluating a new signalling protocol.