Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network technology that specifies the physical and logical link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) infrastructure, it may be used today in the context of many other network interfaces.
Network providers commonly implement Frame Relay for voice (VoFR) and data as an encapsulation technique, used between local area networks (LANs) over a wide area network (WAN). Each end-user gets a private line (or leased line) to a frame-relay node. The frame-relay network handles the transmission over a frequently-changing path transparent to all end-users.
Frame Relay has become one of the most extensively-used WAN protocols. Its cheapness (compared to leased lines) provided one reason for its popularity. The extreme simplicity of configuring user equipment in a Frame Relay network offers another reason for Frame Relay's popularity.
With the advent of Ethernet over fiber optics, MPLS, VPN and dedicated broadband services such as cable modem and DSL, the end may loom for the Frame Relay protocol and encapsulation
Frame relay is a synchronous HDLC protocol based network. Data is sent in HDLC packets, referred to as "frames". The diagram below of an HDLC frame may be familiar, since without adding specific definitions of how the Address, Control and CRC is used, the diagram is applicable to IBM's SDLC, to X.25, to HDLC, to Frame Relay, as well as other protocols.
Network providers commonly implement Frame Relay for voice (VoFR) and data as an encapsulation technique, used between local area networks (LANs) over a wide area network (WAN). Each end-user gets a private line (or leased line) to a frame-relay node. The frame-relay network handles the transmission over a frequently-changing path transparent to all end-users.
Frame Relay has become one of the most extensively-used WAN protocols. Its cheapness (compared to leased lines) provided one reason for its popularity. The extreme simplicity of configuring user equipment in a Frame Relay network offers another reason for Frame Relay's popularity.
With the advent of Ethernet over fiber optics, MPLS, VPN and dedicated broadband services such as cable modem and DSL, the end may loom for the Frame Relay protocol and encapsulation
Frame relay is a synchronous HDLC protocol based network. Data is sent in HDLC packets, referred to as "frames". The diagram below of an HDLC frame may be familiar, since without adding specific definitions of how the Address, Control and CRC is used, the diagram is applicable to IBM's SDLC, to X.25, to HDLC, to Frame Relay, as well as other protocols.
