scope:

This Recommendation / International Standard defines the OSI Network Service in terms of

a) the primitive actions and events of the Service;

b) the parameters associated with each primitive action and event, and the form which they take;

c) the interrelationship between, and the valid sequences of, these actions and events.

The principal objectives of this Recommendation / International Standard are

1) to specify the characteristics of a conceptual Network Service and thus, supplement the Reference Model in guiding the development of Network Layer protocols;

2) to encourage convergence of the capabilities offered by providers of subnetworks;

3) to provide a basis for the individual enhancement of existing heterogeneous subnetworks to a common subnetwork-independent Network Service to enable them to be concatenated for the purpose of providing global communication. (Such concatenation may involve optional additional functions which are not defined in this Recommendation / International Standard.) A definition of the quality of service is an important element of this Recommendation / International Standard;

4) to provide a basis for the development and implementation of subnetwork-independent Transport Layer protocols decoupled from the variability of underlying public and private subnetworks and their specific interface requirements.

This Recommendation / International Standard does not specify individual implementations or products nor does it constrain the implementation of entities and interfaces within a system.

There is no conformance of equipment to this Recommendation / International Standard. Instead, conformance is achieved through implementation of conforming OSI Network protocols which fulfill the Network Service defined in this Recommendation / International Standard.