TRANSMISSION OF SIGNALLING INFORMATION BETWEEN A CENTRAL TERMINAL AND A SUBSCRIBER TERMINAL OF A TELECOMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM

摘要

The present invention provides a telecommunications system comprising an interface mechanism for passing signalling events between a central terminal and a subscriber terminal within the telecommunications system. The interface mechanism comprises a signalling element within the central terminal for receiving a first signalling event for transmission to the subscriber terminal and for referencing a stored set of messages to determine a first signalling message to encode the first signalling event for transmission to the subscriber terminal. Further, it comprises a signalling manager within the subscriber terminal for receiving the first signalling message from the central terminal, and for referencing said stored set of messages to decode the first signalling message to determine the first signalling event. The signalling manager is arranged to receive a second signalling event for transmission to the central terminal and to encode the second signalling event as a predetermined signalling message from said stored set of messages, a parameter of the predetermined signalling message being arranged to contain information identifying the type of the second signalling event. In accordance with the present invention, a core set of messages can be defined to represent all of the necessary signalling events which may need to be communicated between the central terminal and the subscriber terminal. By defining a core set of messages, the number of bits required to define each message is relatively small, this assisting in reducing the bandwidth demands required for signalling.