The E1 interface operates at 2 Mbps over coax cables, compliant with ATM Forum UNI

specifications. It supports both PLCP and direct cell mapping and complies with the following
standards: G.704, G.706, G.732. The interface has BNC connectors.
The E1 transmission link consists of 32 transmission channels (0-31), each of which is 64 Kbits/sec.
The overall transmission rate is 2.048 Mbits/sec. Channels 0 and 16 are reserved for transmission
management, while all other channels are used for payload. The payload bandwidth is thus 1.920
Mbits/sec. Since ATM uses 48 out of the possible 53 bytes for payload transmission, the net
transmission rate becomes 1.738 Mbits/sec.
Channel 0 carries F3-OAM information, signals loss of frame or synchronization, and is responsible
for transferring FERF and LOC messages. Channel 16 is reserved for signalling.
Direct Mapping
The direct mapping of ATM cells onto E1 transmission frames is specified in CCITT
recommendation G.804. This specifies that ATM cells are to be carried in bits 9-28 and 137-256
(corresponding to channels 1-15 and 17-31).
The following is an illustration of the E1 frame format when direct mapping of ATM cells is used.
The 53 byte ATM cell begins with a header and wraps around consecutive E1