Optical Network Design and Implementation

SDH Higher-Level Framing

Higher-level STM-N frames can be simplistically perceived as *4 multiples of a basic STM-1. As illustrated in Figure 6-10, an STM-4 is constructed by byte-interleaved multiplexing of 4 STM-1s into a frame that is 9 rows by 1080 columns wide. The STM-4 signal has a line rate of 622.080 Mbps (4 * 155.520 Mbps). The four STM-1s (STM-1(1), STM-1(2), STM-1(3), and STM-1(4)) are frame aligned before multiplexing. Frame alignment is achieved by ensuring that the first 12 bytes of the STM-4 signal are A1 framing bytes drawn from STM-1(1), the next 3 from STM-1(2), then 3 from STM-1(3), and finally 3 from STM-1(4). The 12 A1 framing bytes are followed by 12 A2 framing bytes that are obtained from the 4 STM-1s in a process, similar ...