Signalling with objects

Conventional signalling systems, such as Q.931 and Q.2931, have grown from simple techniques for creating a single connection between two parties. However, with B-ISDN, it will be desirable to be able to construct multiparty, multiconnection calls for multimedia services. This paper highlights the work done by the RACE MAGIC project to develop a new object-based signalling protocol to meet these requirements, and describes how this new protocol overcomes the shortcomings of conventional signalling.