This ITU-T Recommendation describes the Service Specific Connection Oriented Protocol (SSCOP [6]) enhanced to operate in a multilink or connectionless environment. It specifies the peerto- peer protocol for the transfer of information and control between any pair of SSCOPMCE entities, the interactions between the SSCOPMCE and its user, the interactions between the SSCOPMCE and the layer below, and the interactions between the SSCOPMCE and layer management.