DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE OF SUBSCRIBER ACCESS EQUIPMENT FOR PACKET SWITCHED NETWORKS.

The paper presents developments in the area of packet switching equipment carried out jointly by CSELT and Italtel with the coordination of SIP. Considering that the cost sensitivity of public data networks is mainly concentrated at the network access level, the design effort has been primarily focused on the network functions typically located at this level. Basic system requirements are discussed, ranging from conformity to international and national standards, open-endedness towards emerging new applications, modularity and flexibility required to exploit all the advantages of a ″building block″ approach. System architecture is described and some details concerning hardware and software components are given. The final section is devoted to a presentation of system implementation status and to some field trials results.