TL1 is a one of the most widely used telecom network management protocols. Although it is considered today to be a legacy protocol, an alarm management system that can understand TL1 is still an important tool because of its popularity among SONET, legacy, and other network elements.
This doesn't mean that you have to be a TL1 expert, but you must have a core working knowledge of the protocol to know what you can expect from TL1 telemetry reporting. And if your staff is telling you what can and can't be done with your TL1 monitoring system, you must be able to assess their accuracy.
In this guide, you'll learn that TL1 is nothing more than specifically formatted ASCII text strings. For that reason, they can be conveniently dissected and interpreted by a master station that can parse text. Even as TL1 ages, one advantage has been the massive growth of bandwidth availability. Where the verbosity of TL1 was once a potential problem, it's really not an issue anymore for all but the busiest networks since these text messages are mere drops in the bucket in terms of the bandwidth they take to be transported.
