Abbreviation of integrated services digital network, an international communications standard for sending voice, video, and data over digital telephone lines or normal telephone wires. ISDN supports data transfer rates of 64 Kbps (64,000 bits per second).
There are two types of ISDN:
- Basic Rate Interface (BRI) — consists of two 64-Kbps B-channels and one D-channel for transmitting control information.
- Primary Rate Interface (PRI) — consists of 23 B-channels and one D-channel (U.S.) or 30 B-channels and one D-channel (Europe).
The original version of ISDN employs baseband transmission. Another version, called B-ISDN, uses broadband transmission and is able to support transmission rates of 1.5 Mbps. B-ISDN requires fiber optic cables and is not widely available.
