What are the available sizes of Frame Relay, and how are they differentiated?
The size of a frame relay circuit is defined by how many Kilobits of information can be transferred per second (Kbps). There are two basic types of frame relay Circuits, DS0 at 64Kbps and DS1 at 1.544Mbps (the DS stands for Digital Signaling), DS0 supports a 56kbps frame relay connection (the 8K difference between 64K and 56K is used to transfer information to maintain the circuit, the rest is available to the end customer). DS1 level Frame-Relay can either be used at the full 1.544Mbps speed or “fractionalized” which means that if the full 1.544Mbps speed is not required, a fraction of that may be used. The “fractional” sizes available are: 128K, 256K, 384K, 512K, and 768K. Fractional T1 frame relay connections offer two advantages: They are less expensive than a full T1 connection and they can easily be upgraded to a higher speed when the need arises.
