Frame Relay Layers

Frame Relay Layers

Frame Relay has only physical and data link layers.


Physical Layer

No specific protocol is defined for the physical layer in Frame Relay. Instead, it is left to the implementer to use whatever is available. Frame Relay supports any of the protocols recognized by ANSI.

Data Link Layer

At the data link layer, Frame Relay uses a simple protocol that does not support flow or error control. It only has an error detection mechanism.

##Address (DLCI) field. The first 6 bits of the first byte makes up the first part of the DLCI. The second part of the DLCI uses the first 4 bits of the second byte. These bits are part of the 10-bit data link connection identifier defined by the standard. We will discuss extended addressing at the end of this section.

##Command/response (C/R). The command/response (C/R) bit is provided to allow upper layers to identify a frame as either a command or a response. It is not used by the Frame Relay protocol.

##Extended address (EA). The extended address (EA) bit indicates whether the current byte is the final byte of the address. An EA of 0 means that another address byte is to follow (extended addressing is discussed later). An EA of 1 means that the current byte is the final one.

##Forward explicit congestion notification (FECN). The forward explicit congestion notification (FECN) bit can be set by any switch to indicate that traffic is congested. This bit informs the destination that congestion has occurred. In this way, the destination knows that it should expect delay or a loss of packets.

##Backward explicit congestion notification (BECN). The backward explicit congestion notification (BECN) bit is set (in frames that travel in the other direction) to indicate a congestion problem in the network. This bit informs the sender that con- gestion has occurred. In this way, the source knows it needs to slow down to prevent the loss of packets.

##Discard eligibility (DE). The discard eligibility (DE) bit indicates the priority level of the frame. In emergency situations, switches may have to discard frames to relieve bottlenecks and keep the network from collapsing due to overload. When set (DE 1), this bit tells the network to discard this frame if there is congestion. This bit can be set either by the sender of the frames (user) or by any switch in the network.



Extended Address

To increase the range of DLCIs, the Frame Relay address has been extended from the original 2-byte address to 3- or 4-byte addresses. Figure 18.4 shows the different addresses. Note that the EA field defines the number of bytes; it is 1 in the last byte of the addres, and it is 0 in the other bytes. Note that in the 3- and 4-byte formats, the bit before the last bit is set to 0.


FRADs

To handle frames arriving from other protocols, Frame Relay uses a device called a Frame Relay assembler/disassembler (FRAD). A FRAD assembles and disassembles frames coming from other protocols to allow them to be carried by Frame Relay frames. A FRAD can be implemented as a separate device or as part of a switch.

VOFR

Frame Relay networks offer an option called Voice Over Frame Relay (VOFR) that sends voice through the network. Voice is digitized using PCM and then compressed. The result is sent as data frames over the network. This feature allows the inexpensive sending of voice over long distances. However, note that the quality of voice is not as good as voice over a circuit-switched network such as the telephone network. Also, the varying delay mentioned earlier sometimes corrupts real-time voice.

LMI

Frame Relay was originally designed to provide PVC connections. There was not, therefore, a provision for controlling or managing interfaces. Local Management Information (LMI) is a protocol added recently to the Frame Relay protocol to provide more management features. In particular, LMI can provide -----


1. keep-alive mechanism to check if data are flowing.

2. multicast mechanism to allow a local end system to send frames to more than one remote end system.

3. mechanism to allow an end system to check the status of a switch (e.g., to see if the switch is congested).