WAN STANDARDS

WANs use the OSI reference model, but focus mainly on Layer 1 and Layer 2. WAN standards typically describe both physical layer delivery methods and data link layer requirements, including physical addressing, flow control, and encapsulation. WAN standards are defined and managed by a number of recognized authorities.

The physical layer protocols describe how to provide electrical, mechanical, operational, and functional connections to the services provided by a communications service provider. Some of the common physical layer standards are listed in Figure , and their connectors illustrated in Figure .

The data link layer protocols define how data is encapsulated for transmission to remote sites, and the mechanisms for transferring the resulting frames. A variety of different technologies are used, such as ISDN, Frame Relay or Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). These protocols use the same basic framing mechanism, high-level data link control (HDLC), an ISO standard, or one of its sub-sets or variants.