Chapter 12
Frame Relay
In Chapter 11, we discussed the integrated services digital network (ISDN), which was
developed in the 1970s to eventually replace the public switched telephone network
(PSTN). As part of its development, ISDN was designed to provide both voice and data ser-
vice. Although ISDN was considered a significant improvement to the PSTN, it was still an
evolution of the PSTN and hence was circuit-switched. To support data applications in an
efficient manner, a packet-switching component needed to be included with the ISDN stan-
dard. The only packet-switching technology available at the time was X.25 (see Appendix
E), which did not support the ISDN model of keeping user data separate from control data.
Consequently, frame relay was de ...