Frame relay burst on the scene in the early 1990s and was expected to be an interim technology until ATM matured enough to provide a single network infrastructure for data, voice, and video. It was billed as a switched WAN technology that offered a cost-effective alternative for LAN interconnection, Systems Network Architecture (SNA) transport, and Internet access. Furthermore, it provided much higher speeds than traditional X.25 networks could achieve. It now appears that frame relay is here to stay, with a global revenue stream of almost $12B from over 57,000 worldwide customers, and an annual growth rate of 48 percent in customers and 77 percent in ports!
This course offers an overview of frame relay markets and applications and examines the nature of the service. In particular, we discuss the User-to-Network Interface (UNI) and Network-to-Network Interface (NNI), as well as the associated protocols and frame relay access device (FRAD) operation. Other topics include committed information rate (CIR) and related quality of service (QoS) parameters, as well as congestion management procedures. Finally, participants explore access options, link management, multiprotocol support, and learn how vendors and carriers are supporting voice and video over frame relay.
