Signalling System R2 is a
signalling protocol A signaling protocol is a type of communications protocol for encapsulation (networking), encapsulating the Signalling (telecommunications), signaling between communication endpoints and switching systems to establish or terminate a connection and t ...
for
telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
s that was in use from the 1960s mostly in Europe, and later also in Latin America, Asia, and Australia, to convey exchange information between two telephone switching systems for establishing a telephone call via a
telephone trunk.
[ITU-T Recommendation Q.400-Q.490](_blank)
- Specifications of Signalling System R2 It is suitable for signaling on analog as well as digital circuits.
R2 signaling specifications were first published by the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT) in ITU White Book Volume VI of 1969,
[IVth Plenary Assembly (Mar Del Plata, 23 September-25 October 1968), White Book Volume VI, ''Telephone Signaling and Switching'', Recommendations Series Q, ITU 1969.] and are maintained by the
International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) in Recommendations Q.400 through Q.490. The name ''R2'' is a derived from a designation as ''Regional System No. 2''.
R2 signaling methods may be logically divided into two
protocol
Protocol may refer to:
Sociology and politics
* Protocol (politics), a formal agreement between nation states
* Protocol (diplomacy), the etiquette of diplomacy and affairs of state
* Etiquette, a code of personal behavior
Science and technology
...
groups. The
line signaling
Line signaling is a class of telecommunications signaling protocols. Line signaling is responsible for off-hook, ringing signal, answer, ground start, on-hook unidirectional supervision messaging in each direction from calling party to called pa ...
group comprises supervisory signals for call setup and termination, while inter
register signaling
In telecommunications, register signaling provides addressing information, such as the calling and/or called telephone number. R2 register signaling is an example.
This is contrasted with line signaling
Line signaling is a class of telecomm ...
uses in-band multifrequency signals to transfer calling-party and called-party addressing information.
Signaling information
A signalling protocol may be visualized by two contexts: the information it conveys, and the location of participants in the network.
Each R2 national variant conveys at least the following. ''Forward'' is the direction from the dialling telephone's switch to the called telephone's switch, and ''backward'' is the inverse direction:
Line signalling
R2 line signalling is a family of protocols that govern the resource acquisition and resource release related to a two-party telephone call attempt and, if successful, the establishment of a two-party telephone call. Although in the 1960s R2 line signalling was represented as electrical pulses on a two-wire or four-wire
circuit, by the latter 1970s these
analog
Analog or analogue may refer to:
Computing and electronics
* Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable
** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals
*** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
electrical pulses also could be represented in digital form by a signalling DS0 channel in the trunk, which is normally channel 16 in an E1 trunk.
Register signalling
R2 register signalling is a family of protocols that govern the conveyance of addressing information during the addressing phase and how the call attempt turned out during the disposition phase. Although in the 1960s R2 register signalling was represented by electromechanical devices that could generate
multi-frequency In telephony, multi-frequency signaling (MF) is a type of signaling that was introduced by the Bell System after World War II. It uses a combination of audible tones for address (telephone number) transport and supervision signaling on trunk lines b ...
audio tones and by electromechanical devices that could detect those audio tones, by the latter 1970s these electromechanical registers also could be represented by digitized PCM audio in DS0 channels of an E1 other than the R2 line signalling DS0 channel in that E1.
Standards
R2 signalling refers to a vast number of variants of R2 that resemble each other to varying degrees. For most R2 variants, each such variant of R2 is promulgated by the
PTT of each nation and/or by a telecommunications equipment manufacturer who addressed that national market with a nation-specific adaptation of one of their products.
The international version of R2 is an inter-nation protocol for R2 signalling that crosses national boundaries, and is neither a superset nor a subset of any national variant of R2. Conversely, each national variant of R2 is intra-nation. The international standard R2 was first promulgated by
CEPT in the 1970s and then later by ITU-T with only modest evolution.
Signalling variants
R2 line signalling variants that support R2 line signalling in its electrical-pulse form by dedicated two-wire or four-wire circuits usually represent each signal as two different pulse lengths (e.g., 150
millisecond
A millisecond (from '' milli-'' and second; symbol: ms) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one thousandth (0.001 or 10−3 or 1/1000) of a second and to 1000 microseconds.
A unit of 10 milliseconds may be called ...
s versus 600 milliseconds), where the two different meanings of those two different pulse lengths varies by context.
R2 line signalling variants that support R2 line signalling in its
digital
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
**Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
form via the A, B, C, and D bits in DS0 channel #16 of an E1 fall into two general categories: those that use only the A bit to represent each signal and those that use multiple A, B, C, and D bits to represent each signal, with using only two, the A bit and the B bit being by far the most common. Those that use only the A bit, strongly resemble the analog electrical R2 line signalling, where each signal is a timed pulse that differs by length of time that the pulse is in the high voltage (i.e., one-valued bit) state before returning to the untimed resting voltage state (i.e., zero-valued bit). Those that use multiple bits to represent each signal usually are stateful in that time of exhibition of that bit pattern typically plays no role in conveying meaning.
Multifrequency tones
All R2 register signalling variants use a combination of two frequencies of audio signals. Each pair of frequencies is called a
multi-frequency In telephony, multi-frequency signaling (MF) is a type of signaling that was introduced by the Bell System after World War II. It uses a combination of audible tones for address (telephone number) transport and supervision signaling on trunk lines b ...
tone, or MF tone. Each call attempt has an origination end and a termination end, both to the multi-span call as well as for each span within that multi-span call routing. The origination end is called the outgoing register in R2 parlance. The termination end is called the incoming register in R2 parlance. The outgoing register transmits forward MF tones to the incoming register. The incoming register transmits backward MF tones to the outgoing register. The outgoing register detects backward MF tones arriving from the incoming register. The incoming register detects forward MF tones arriving from the outgoing register. The outgoing register transmits the first signal, but from that point forward the outgoing register merely passively responds to the prompting driven by each signal transmitted by the incoming register. (In apt modern-era
proleptic
Proleptic may refer to:
* Prolepsis
Prolepsis may refer to:
* Prolepsis (rhetoric), a figure of speech in which the speaker raises an objection and then immediately answers it
*Prolepsis (literary), anticipating action, a flash forward, see For ...
terms, the outgoing register's first push signal to the incoming register is similar to a
peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...
message, whereas the incoming register's pull signals, which request information from the outgoing register, are
client–server, where the client is the incoming register and the server is the outgoing register.)
Nomenclature
R2 is a mnemonic for ''Regional System No. 2''. ''Regional System No. 1'', R1, was the CCITT designation for North American
multi-frequency signaling In telephony, multi-frequency signaling (MF) is a type of signaling that was introduced by the Bell System after World War II. It uses a combination of audible tones for address (telephone number) transport and supervision signaling on trunk lines b ...
(MF) practiced in the
Bell System
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...
, although In practice that term is rarely used for MF signalling.
Later in the 20th century, use of R2 signalling spread beyond Europe to all regions of the globe, including Mexico on the North American continent.
The European market consisted of a large number of national telecommunications administrations, but unlike the Bell
System, these were not usually integrated with an equipment manufacturer. Instead a large number of independent vendors of equipment emerged in Europe though the 20th century in a very competitive market, tendering for business from European PTTs. A more open set of technical standards developed, particularly under the auspices of
CEPT and later
ETSI
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is an independent, not-for-profit, standardization organization in the field of information and communications. ETSI supports the development and testing of global technical standard ...
. This allowed interconnection, interoperability and communication between a more diverse range of equipment types and telecommunication administrations.
European equipment vendors such as Ericsson, Siemens and the European ITT affiliates, amongst others became major suppliers to telecommunication administrations around the world bringing technologies like Ericsson’s ARF and ITT’s Pentaconta crossbars to many markets. European derived standards were adopted more readily around the world than the proprietary standards of Bell System and Western Electric. As a result, R2 has even found sparse use in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, which is largely under the influence of Bell System standardization.
R2 signalling was also used for register signaling within many European switching systems of that era, notably in Ericsson’s AR- crossbar systems. It was used for inter station communication and for communication between parent and remote switches.
See also
*
Compelled signalling.
References
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Telephony signals