Subject: Additional supervisory signals for analog lines

From: Martin Taylor <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 07:48:35 -0800

The only package I have been able to find for supervisory signaling on
analog line terminations is the "al" package in RFC3015.  The only signal
supported by "al" is "ring".  This package therefore does not cover the full
range of North American requirements for analog line signaling.  To do this
it would be necessary to define additional signals, for example "reverse
loop current feed" and "loop current feed open."

Am I missing something here?  Is there any work in progress on enhanced
analog supervisory packages?

Martin

========================
Martin Taylor
CopperCom
3651 FAU Boulevard, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33431
561 239 6694

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From: "Michael Brown" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 18:39:32 -0500

Martin,

   Sorry for the delayed response. My email server was apparently holding
messages so I just saw the post.

   The quick answer to your message is that there is indeed some other ongoing
work which relates to analog line supervision. Nortel has a proposal/draft for
an enhanced alerting package which provides support for distinctive ringing/call
waiting as well as for both on-hook and off-hook callerid display. In addition,
there is a package (Robbed Bit Signaling Package) defined in a recent draft
(draft-manyfolks-megaco-caspackage-00.txt) from a Megaco design subteam for CAS
which defines a mechanism to provide support for metering. As an aside, it is
also used to generate North American MF Winks.

   I assume that your post is driven by comments from the recent MSF meeting
where I had suggested that I would like to see us (Megaco WG, SG16, ATM Forum,
among others) work together to normalize the development of the the ATMF
packages with work ongoing in Megaco WG.   As you point out, there are
additional functions, such as loop current feed open, which are not reflected by
these packages. As you point out, there may be some types of functions which are
NOT reflected in the existing/in progress packages. Certainly the AL package was
a "starter kit" view of meeting the requirements for analog lines. What I'm
suggesting is that where there are existing definitions that they be used and
extended as per Megaco package extension mechanisms rather than creating new
definitions for those packages.

   I do also have some concerns about the way in which the packages are
constructed in the ATMF proposal. A couple of areas of concern are the
specification of signals as parameters to a set of  overarching signals and
there are some instances where I believe properties are defined which would be
better suited to be statistics.

   At any rate, the point of this response is simply to indicate that I believe
there is common ground in defining signaling for analog lines that we can and
should take advantage of.

   A question I would ask as a starting point for discussion is why the analog
lines package in 3015 was not used as a basis for the ATMF packages. I believe
that the AL package does provide the capability to handle on-hook, off-hook,
flash hook, and basic ringing in the same way as defined in the ATMF packages
and therefore redefining those signals/events isn't necessary.

  One more quick comment is that I'm not certain whether this discussion might
be better taken "off the list" and carried on between specifically interested
parties from the various fora involved in this work and then brought back to the
list after working out the issues/questions. Perhaps include a conference call
to kick off and try to accelerate the work? Opinions? If this is viewed to be a
good way to go forward, I would be willing to collect the list of people
interested in participating and to coordinate a kick off conference call for
late this week or early next week.

Michael Brown

Martin Taylor wrote:

> loop current feed" and "."
>