DIN ISO 8348 : 1990

Specifies the network layer service to the transport layer at the boundary between the transport and network layers of the reference model. Has the following principal objectives; to specify the characteristics of a conceptual Network Service (supplements the Reference Model in guiding the development of Network Layer protocols); to give a basis for the individual enhancement of existing heterogeneous subnetworks to a common subnetwork-independent Network Service to enable them to be concatenated for providing global communication; to encourage convergence of the capabilities offered by providers of subnetworks; to give a basis for the development and implementation of subnetwork-independent Transport Layer protocols.