Data link connection identifier
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A data link connection identifier (DLCI) is a channel number which is attached to frame relay data frames to tell the network how to route the data. This 10-bit field defines the destination address of a packet. The address is local on a link-by-link basis.
Frame relay is statistically multiplexed, which means that only one frame can be transmitted at a time but many logical connections can co-exist on a single physical line. The DLCI allows the data to be logically tied to one of the connections, so that once it gets to the network it knows where to send it.
The standard allows the existence of 1024 DLCIs, however only numbers from 16 to 991 are available for end users' equipment. The rest are reserved for various management purposes.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ What is Frame Relay. Retrieved on 2007-09-18.
