Chapter 1. Introduction; Understanding Frame Relay - ADTRAN Express 5200 User Manual

Introduction
Chapter 1

UNDERSTANDING FRAME RELAY

Frame relay is a wide area network (WAN) service designed to
minimize physical connections. This is accomplished by using
virtual connections within the frame relay cloud and accessing
these virtual circuits with normally one physical connection at each
location to the frame relay service. Virtual circuits are addressed
using header information at the beginning of each frame. These
frames are formatted by the user's CPE equipment such as the
ADTRAN Express 5200.
ANSI standards describe how each frame must be constructed to
provide interoperability between CPE equipment and frame relay
switching equipment. Each frame must contain a header, at least
one byte of information data, two bytes of CRC16, and a trailing
flag 0x7E.
This header information contains a virtual circuit address known as
a DLCI (data link connection identifier). The header information
also contains bits used for network congestion control.
Frame relay virtual circuits may be defined as permanent (PVC) or
switched (SVC). PVCs have the same DLCI for a given path each
time a user protocol session is established. The network service
provider assigns these DLCIs at subscription time. SVCs, on the
other hand, have DLCIs dynamically assigned each time a user
protocol session is established. The CPE equipment must request a
call and the DLCI is assigned by the network switching equipment.
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