TTCN is a programming language used for testing of communication protocols and web services. A TTCN test suite consists of many test cases written in the TTCN programming language. Until version 2 the language was written in tables and called Tree and Tabular Combined Notation. Reading and editing this language required special TTCN editors. Beginning with version 3 TTCN was renamed to Testing and Test Control Notation. It is now closer to current programming languages and can be edited with traditional editors. TTCN-3 is more flexible than TTCN-2 in that it can be used for protocol testing as well as testing traditional software.
All versions of TTCN need dedicated compilers or interpreters for execution.
TTCN is widely used, for example; ETSI, ITU for the testing of telecommunication protocols. Conformance test cases of ETSI standards like ISDN, DECT, GSM, EDGE, 3G, DSRC have also been written in TTCN. Recently it has also been used for testing various protocol standards e.g. Bluetooth, IP.
Execution of those test cases against products (e.g. phones, mobile phones, service enablers or network elements) is used to verify that the protocol implementation in those products meet the requirements defined by telecommunication standards.
TTCN is often combined with ASN.1.
Conformance testing means a test execution against a well-defined test case, e.g. a test written in TTCN. Plug-tests, also called interoperability testing, are test cases executed with a client - server model; e.g. Mail-Client against Mail-server, phone against network, Bluetooth headset against Bluetooth phone. Plug-tests are e.g. often executed at so-called unplug-tests.
Conformance-tests and plug-tests complement each other. If properly done, interoperability errors found with plug-tests should lead to definition of new conformance test cases that cover the failed test.
Digital enhanced cordless telecommunications , usually known by the acronym DECT, is a standard primarily used for creating cordless telephone systems. It originated in Europe, where it is the universal standard, replacing earlier cordless phone standards, such as 900 MHz CT1 and CT2.
The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) coordinates standards for telecommunications and Information Communication Technology such as X.509 for cybersecurity, Y.3172 for machine learning, and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC for video compression, between its Member States, Private Sector Members, and Academia Members. ITU-T is one of the three Sectors of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The Open Systems Interconnection model is a conceptual model that characterises and standardises the communication functions of a telecommunication or computing system without regard to its underlying internal structure and technology. Its goal is the interoperability of diverse communication systems with standard communication protocols.
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet-switched data communication in wide area networks (WAN). It was originally defined by the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee in a series of drafts and finalized in a publication known as The Orange Book in 1976.
Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) is a standard interface description language for defining data structures that can be serialized and deserialized in a cross-platform way. It is broadly used in telecommunications and computer networking, and especially in cryptography.
Articles related to standards include:
An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it and may also have various properties of how it was designed. There is no single definition, and interpretations vary with usage.
In computing, CHILL is a procedural programming language designed for use in telecommunication switches. The language is still used for legacy systems in some telecommunication companies and for signal box programming.
E.123 is an international standard by the standardization sector of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T), entitled Notation for national and international telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and Web addresses. It provides guidelines for the presentation of telephone numbers, email addresses, and web addresses in print, on letterheads, and similar purposes.
Specification and Description Language (SDL) is a specification language targeted at the unambiguous specification and description of the behaviour of reactive and distributed systems.
T.51 / ISO/IEC 6937:2001, Information technology — Coded graphic character set for text communication — Latin alphabet, is a multibyte extension of ASCII, or rather of ISO/IEC 646-IRV. It was developed in common with ITU-T for telematic services under the name of T.51, and first became an ISO standard in 1983. Certain byte codes are used as lead bytes for letters with diacritics (accents). The value of the lead byte often indicates which diacritic that the letter has, and the follow byte then has the ASCII-value for the letter that the diacritic is on.
The Video Coding Experts Group or Visual Coding Experts Group is a working group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with video coding standards. It is responsible for standardization of the "H.26x" line of video coding standards, the "T.8xx" line of image coding standards, and related technologies.
Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) is a reference model in computer science, which provides a co-ordinating framework for the standardization of open distributed processing (ODP). It supports distribution, interworking, platform and technology independence, and portability, together with an enterprise architecture framework for the specification of ODP systems.
The International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) is an organization consisting of several companies interested in real-time, rich-media communications. Rich media includes voice and one-way data and one-way video. Members of this community include Internet application developers and service providers, teleconferencing hardware and software suppliers and service providers, telecommunications service providers and equipment vendors, end users, educational institutions, government agencies and non-profit corporations. On July 28, 2014 IMTC and the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) merged into one consortium. The UCI Forum defined interoperability profiles and certification tests, implementation guidelines, and best practices for interoperability between UC products and existing applications.
TTCN-3(Testing and Test Control Notation version 3) is a strongly typed testing language used in conformance testing of communicating systems. TTCN-3 is written by ETSI in the ES 201 873 series, and standardized by ITU-T in the Z.160 Series. TTCN-3 has its own data types and can be combined with ASN.1, IDL and XML type definitions.
E.161 is an ITU-T Recommendation that defines the arrangement of digits, letters, and symbols on telephone keypads and rotary dials. It also defines the recommended mapping between the basic Latin alphabet and digits. Uses for this mapping include:
The Global Standards Collaboration (GSC) started life as The "Inter-regional Telecommunications Standards conference (ITSC) in 1990. This was an initiative of the T1 Committee of the United States who invited the other founding partner organizations ITU-T, ETSI and the Japanese TTC to the first ISC Meeting in Fredericksburg, VA. The goal was set by the “spirit of Melbourne”, stemming from a CCITT Plenary Assembly, to find a way of co-operation between Participating Standards Organizations (PSOs) from different regions of the world in order to facilitate global standardization within the ITU. The ITSC focussed its work on fixed telecommunications networks.
RFID is a wireless technology supported by many different vendors for tags and readers. In order to ensure global operability of the products multiple test standards have been developed. Furthermore, standardization organizations like ETSI organize RFID Plugtests, where products from multiple vendors are tested against each other in order to ensure interoperability.
MPEG-H is a group of international standards under development by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It has various "parts" – each of which can be considered a separate standard. These include a media transport protocol standard, a video compression standard, an audio compression standard, a digital file format container standard, three reference software packages, three conformance testing standards, and related technologies and technical reports. The group of standards is formally known as ISO/IEC 23008 – High efficiency coding and media delivery in heterogeneous environments. Development of the standards began around 2010, and the first fully approved standard in the group was published in 2013. Most of the standards in the group have been revised or amended several times to add additional extended features since their first edition.
Protocol engineering is the application of systematic methods to the development of communication protocols. It uses many of the principles of software engineering, but it is specific to the development of distributed systems.