JOHNG.
VAN BOSSE
SIGNALING
IN TELECOMMUNICATION
John Wiley & Sons, 1997
T he field of telecommunications, with particular refe-
rence to networking aspects, has seen tremendous
progresses taking place in the last two decades, see, e.g.,
the widespread provision of communication services
based on the principle of packet-switching such as
Intemet-based services. Nowadays we can count tens of
books written in the field of telecommunications covering
the most different aspects in the big world of telecommu-
nication networks, from protocols to t r a f k engineering,
from switching to LANs, from ISDN to ATM networks,
etc. Nevertheless, it is quite surprising that one the most
important issues in telecorrxunication networks, that is
signaling, has seldom been considered important as well,
if we judge based on the book coverage of signaling
issues. The book by van Bosse comes to fill such hole
which, believe it or not, lasted almost twenty years, since
the previous book on the same subject that I know of is
dated 1979. The need for a book coverage of signaling
aspects in a telecommunication network is therefore
apparent given the speed at which telecommunication
technologies and techniques have evolved.
This book gives a comprehensive survey of the evolu-
tion of signaling systems by dealing initially with aspects
of subscriber signaling and inter-exchange signaling in
Chapters 3 and 4. The author provides in these chapters
the main concepts related to the evolution of signaling in
the channel-associated form, that is the early type of
signaling whose main rationale was just to enable the pro-
vision of the plain old telephone services.
The remaining part of the book is dedicated to com-
mon channel signaling systems, which are the base of
mwadays networking infrastructures capable of suppor-
ting a variety of services each with its own features and
grade of service parameters. After a brief introduction to
common-channel signaling given in Chapter 5, Signalling
System No.6 is briefly presented in Chapter 6: it is a
signaling system that has been mainly used in long-
Vol. 9. No. 5 September - October 1998
NETWORKS
distance and international network sections with a limited
signaling link capacity and basically oriented to telephone
call control only. Todays most important signaling
system, that is Signaling System No.7 (SS NO.^), is
described in Chapters 7 and 8. Within this signaling
system, protocols for trunk-related application are cove-
red in Chapters 9 and 11, whereas Chapters 13, 14 and 15
describe the protocols for all other applications that make
the Signaling System No.7 really the pulsing core of a
multiservice worldwide communication network.
Other signaling aspects that do not belong properly to
a specific signaling system, but are anyway fundarnen-
tal in allowing the development of new networking fea-
tures are discussed as well in the book. Chapter 10
describes the signaling system between user and
exchange in an ISDN network, what is called Digital
Subscriber Signalling System No. 1. Signaling aspects in
cellular mobile telecommunications, whose deployment
is very recent and following the development of S S
No.7, are discussed in Chapter 12. Finally, Chapters 16
and 17 describe some applications of transactions in
intelligent and mobile networks.
In conclusion the book provides a very comprehensive
survey of all signaling aspects involved in modem tele-
communication networks. This work represents an impres-
sive synthesis of the immense bibliography available in
this field, mainly due to ITU-T standardization organiza-
tion (formerly CCIlT). Last but not least for European
readers, the book covers implementation aspects of both
American and European systems, for example in early
digital multiplexing techniques and signalling systems or
in modem cellular networks, where a unique international
standard was not or is not available.
Achille Pattavina
467.