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ISDN and SS7
Black U., Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1997. Type: Book (9780132591935)
Date Reviewed: Mar 1 1998

The Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and Signaling System 7 (SS7) are telephone signaling systems that are widely deployed in many countries. ISDN is used to carry signaling information between the user’s terminal (usually a telephone) and the network, while SS7 is used to carry signaling information within the network itself and between national and international networks. The two systems together handle call initiation, routing, termination and, in some networks, 800 number translation. This book presents a technical overview of these two systems.

The preface is vague about the intended audience, although Black does liken his subject to the signaling systems used by certain fish, which may be a clue. The most appropriate use for this book may be for continuing education of a professional who is already familiar with telephone technology and practice. While the book is useful as a tutorial, it lacks orientation for a lay reader unfamiliar with the highly technical and obscure acronyms. Even for a technical audience, the acronyms are sometimes difficult to penetrate, especially toward the end of the book.

The book is organized in two chapter sequences, one for ISDN and the other for SS7. Each of these is broken down by layer in the familiar ISO architecture. In each chapter, the functions of each protocol and layer are explained and important protocol operations are discussed. Many books follow this bottom-up organization, which is appropriate for a reference book, but less well suited to a tutorial or textbook. When explaining complex concepts, a top-down organization makes it easier for the student to see how the process works and how the pieces fit together.

Obviously, the book tries to do too much in too few pages. The chapter organization results in repeated explanations of similar functions for each level and for each protocol. In some places the explanation is sparse, while in others it is obscured by a blizzard of details. Some diagrams contribute little to the text discussion, but others--in particular those showing end-to-end message interactions--are well done. The discussion of the Advanced Information Network (AIN) late in the book is well done. An early overview of the AIN signaling requirements might have helped the lay reader understand what motivates the protocol details presented later.

The book is less useful as a reference and is clearly not intended as such; in fact, the author frequently cites national and international standards for further information. While the prose is clear and generally well written, the book apparently was not thoroughly proofread. There are a number of minor spelling and grammatical errors.

Reviewer:  David L. Mills Review #: CR121190 (9803-0114)
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ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) (C.2.1 ... )
 
 
Network Topology (C.2.1 ... )
 
 
Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model (OSI) (C.2.0 ... )
 
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Other reviews under "ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)": Date
The great work
Barlow J. Communications of the ACM 35(1): 25-28, 1992. Type: Article
Apr 1 1993
ISDN: an introduction
Stallings W., Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., Indianapolis, IN, 1989. Type: Book (9780024154712)
Mar 1 1990
ISDN explained: worldwide network and applications technology
Griffths J., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1990. Type: Book (9789780471926757)
Sep 1 1991
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