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The ISDN Company
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D-13355 Berlin

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Fax: +49-30-46706-126

ACOTEC
ISDN Protocol Stacks

General Technical Description

1. General Architecture

The ISDN stacks provided by ACOTEC are implemented in such a way that all specific components for the operating system, as well as for the hardware, are built as individual modules and can be separately modified. All available stacks may be used for different operating systems and hardware environments.

The software architecture is structured as follows:

API Manager
D-Channel
Protocols 		B-Channel
Protocols
Hardware Interface

The Hardware Interface is the only part of the software which needs to be adapted for a specific ISDN Chip-set which is used in the customer's ISDN hardware. The entire ACOTEC ISDN Protocol Stack may easily be adapted to the customer specific hardware components. All higher level protocols and interfaces do not need to be changed.

D-Channel Protocols are available for all important markets in North America, Japan and Europe. The B-Channel Protocols ACOTEC offers comprise all protocols necessary for those ISDN applications most frequently used. ACOTEC makes available an entirely transparent B-Channel-Stack, continuing with HDLC and finishing with X.75 and ISO 8208. All protocols may be integrated individually in specific B-Channel-Protocol Stacks.

The access to the ISDN protocols as well as to the ISDN hardware is controlled with the API Manager. The API Manager synchronizes the access to the B-Channels available and puts at the disposal of the programming interface modules, the respective interfaces in conjunction with the operating system used.

For the important PC market ACOTEC offers complete stacks specifically composed for Windows 3.11, Windows 95 and Windows NT. The following diagrams illustrate the corresponding architecture for each operating system.

ACOTEC
ISDN Protocol Stacks
 for Windows 3.x
ACOTEC
ISDN Protocol Stacks
 for Windows 95
ACOTEC
ISDN Protocol Stacks
 for Windows NT

2. D-Channel Protocols

As well as the Layer 2 implementation of LAPD, the following D-Channel Protocol implementations are available for Layer 3:

Name Protocol(s):
EuroISDN DSS1
USA NI1 DMS 100 5 ESS
France VN 3 / 4
Japan INS 64
German 1TR6

3. B-Channel Protocol Stacks

The following B-Channel Protocols can be provided:

Name Protocol(s): Layer:
HDLC HDLC 1
X.75 X.75 SLP 2
Transparent Transparent 1
T.90 NL / ISO 8208 ISO 8806
ISO 8208 		3
T.30 T.30 2&3
V.120 V.120 Subset
(for CompuServe access only)		 2

4. Hardware Interfaces

Independent of any chip combination, ACOTEC can provide a hardware specific Setup and Configuration Module. For Windows 95 installation and support for Plug & Play is also available. Currently the ACOTEC ISDN Protocol Stacks support the following ISDN Chip Sets:

ISAC

Chip Combination:

  • ISAC-S-TE / HSCX-TE
  • ISAC-B / HSCX-TE
  • ISAC / ISAR
  • ISAC / JADE
IEC-Q

Chip Combination:

  • IEC-Q / ISAR
  • IEC-Q/ICC / HSCX-TE
  • IEC-Q/ICC / JADE
  • IEC-Q/ICC / ISAR
SBCX-ICC

Chip Combination:

  • SBCX-ICC / HSCX-TE
  • SBCX-ICC / ISAR
  • SBCX / ISAR

ACOTEC is also able to adapt the whole Protocol Stack to other ISDN Chip Sets easily because of its well structured software architecture.

5. Application Programming Interfaces

The ACOTEC ISDN Protocol Stack supports the NDIS WAN Miniport Driver concept of Microsoft as well as the ISDN API CAPI. An adaptation to the customers' specific programming interfaces is also possible.

For the Microsoft operating systems ACOTEC can provide the following Application Programming Interfaces:

Operating System Name Implementation
Windows 3.x CAPI 1.1 / 2.0 for Win 3.x VxD, CAPI20.DLL, CAPI.DLL
Windows 95 CAPI 1.1 for Win95 16bit CAPI.DLL
CAPI 2.0 for Win95 CAPI20.DLL, CAPI2032.DLL
NDIS WAN Miniport driver for Win95 32bit VxD
Windows NT CAPI 2.0 for WinNT CAPI2032.DLL
NDIS WAN Miniport driver for WinNT 32bit device driver

For TAPI based applications ACOTEC can also provide customer specific TAPI Service Provider.

6. Implementation

The entire ACOTEC Source Code including the protocol stacks are implemented in ANSI C - except when unavoidable operating system calls have to be made. The source code can be ported to other operating systems in a simple structured way.

As a development tool the Microsoft Visual C-Compiler, Version 4.0 or 4.2 is required.

7. Documentation

For the entire ISDN Protocol Stack a comprehensive documentation is provided. This consists of more than 300 pages outlining the fundamental architecture of the software together with details of all modules and protocols used. It explains how to integrate customers own protocols and software modules into the ACOTEC ISDN Protocol Stacks. This document forms an ideal basis for developers to get experience with ISDN technology.