IEC 60870-5-101/104

• IEC 60870-5-101 (also known as IEC 870-5-101) is an international

standard, released at the beginning of the 90ies by  the IEC (
International Electrotechnical Commission).

• Effort to create a standardize protocol.

• The protocol has found widespread use in the energy sector, and is still
used today. It is based on the EPA architecture (Enhanced Performance
Architecture) and defines only the physical, link and application layers of
the OSI model.

• IEC 60870-5-101 is primarily used with relatively slow transmission media

on the asynchronous V.24 interface.
• The standard promises baud rates of up to 9600 bit/s, with much
higher baud rates (<115200 bit/s) actually being used. X.24/X.27
interfaces with baud rates up to 64000 bit/s, also part of the
standard's description, could not establish themselves and are rarely
used.

• Interoperability between devices by different vendors is ensured by

the interoperability list, which is defined by the standard. In the list,
the function range is defined for each device by marking the
applicable functions. The common denominator between different
vendor lists limits the possible function range.
• IEC 60870-5-101 is a 'Companion Standard', extended by these further
standards:
• IEC 60870-5-1
defines different frame formats, though IEC 60870-5-101 uses only the
FT1.2 format
• IEC 60870-5-2 - defines the link layer transmission mode
• IEC 60870-5-3- defines the basic application data structure
• IEC 60870-5-4 -defines how information is encoded
• IEC 60870-5-5 -defines basic application layer functions
• IEC TS 60870-5-601
defines "Conformance Test Cases" for IEC 60870-5-101
• IEC 60870-5-101 was extended and more precisely defined in 2001 by
Amendment 2.
• As the original standard left more room for interpretation, there were
many different implementations on a wide range of different devices
many of which are mutually incompatible. To remedy this situation,
major energy utilities, such as RWE, Bayernwerke (E.ON), have
developed their own IEC 60870-5-101 based standards. The
"Norwegian IEC 870-5-101 User Convention", managing line
redundancy in particular, has found wide acceptance in Scandinavian
countries.
• IEC 60870-5-101 is known for the resilience of its link layer and for its
simply structured application layer. The main focus was placed on
performance definition, so that some information needed for data
decoding is not transmitted. For data decoding to work, parameter
settings such as information object length, ASDU address length etc.
need to be correct. This is not much of a problem, as interoperability
lists help to achieve this.

• Fragmentary protocol definition has its disadvantages, especially with

respect to line redundancy where a range of diverging
implementations exist. A clear definition of project-specific
requirements is recommended.
• ISO/OSI Model
Supported Information Types
Control direction  • Single Command
• Double Command
• Setpoint
• Regulating step command

Monitoring Direction • Single indication [1 Bit] with quality and time tag
• Double indication [2 bit] with quality and time tag
• Measured scaled value with quality and time tag
• Measured normalized value with quality and time tag
• Measured floating point value with quality and time tag
• Bitpattern [32 bit] with quality and time tag
• Counter value with quality
• Counter value with quality and time tag
• Step position value with quality and time tag
• Event of protection equipment with quality and time tag
• Protocol Features
Physical Layer PCM, Full-duplex operation in balanced
mode, half-duplex operation in
unbalanced mode
Link Layer Asymmetric transmission (unbalanced
mode): Party line or point to point
Symmetric transmission (balanced mode):
Only point to point is possible

Application Layer On-demand transmission (e. g. single

indications, analogs, ...)
Spontaneous transmission (e. g. single
indications with time tag, ...)
Direct command transmission (with select
before operate)
Clock synchronization
File Transfer

Address space  Common Address of ASDU: 1..65535

Information object address: 1..16777215
Link address: 0..65535
• Supports unbalanced (only master initiated message) & balanced (can
be master/slave initiated) modes of data transfer.
Frame format
Available Protocol Stacks

• IEC 60870-5-101, Master ,Interoperability

• IEC 60870-5-101, Dialup Master protocol stack implements the 
IEC 60870-5-101 protocol in combination with integrated automatic
calling (ACU Automatic Calling Unit) specifically for operation based
on a variety of dialup connections, such as PSTN (Public Switched
Telephone Network), GSM, ISDN and others.
• IEC 60870-5-101, Slave
IEC 60870-5-104 (also known as IEC 870-5-104) is an international
standard, released in 2000 by the IEC (
International Electrotechnical Commission). As can be seen from the
standard's full designation 'Network access for IEC 60870-5-101 using
standard transport profiles', its application layer is based on 
IEC 60870-5-101.

IEC 60870-5-104 enables communication between control station and

substation via a standard TCP/IP network. The TCP protocol is used for
connection-oriented secure data transmission.
IEC 60870-5-104 limits the information types and configuration
parameters defined in IEC 60870-5-101, which means that not all
functions available in IEC 60870-5-101 are supported by IEC 60870-5-
104.

For instance IEC 60870-5-104 does not support short time stamps (3-

byte format), the length of the various address elements is set to
defined maximum values. But in practice, vendors very often combine
the IEC 60870-5-101 application layer with the IEC 60870-5-
104 transport profile, without paying attention to these restrictions.
This might then lead to problems, if a device strictly applies the
standard.
Interoperability between devices by different vendors is ensured by the
interoperability list, which is defined by the standard. In the list, the
function range is defined for each device by marking the applicable
functions. The common denominator between different vendor lists
defines the possible function range.

The biggest advantage of IEC 60870-5-104 is that it enables

communication via a standard network, which allows simultaneous
data transmission between several devices and services. Apart from
this, the same pros and cons apply to IEC 60870-5-104 sand 
IEC 60870-5-101. Issues that remain to be dealt with are the definition
of communication with redundant systems or networks and, with the
use of the internet, data encryption.
ISO/OSI Model
Supported Information Types
Control direction  • Single Command
• Double Command
• Setpoint
• Regulating step command

Monitoring Direction • Single indication [1 Bit] with quality and time tag
• Double indication [2 bit] with quality and time tag
• Measured scaled value with quality and time tag
• Measured normalized value with quality and time tag
• Measured floating point value with quality and time tag
• Bitpattern [32 bit] with quality and time tag
• Counter value with quality
• Counter value with quality and time tag
• Step position value with quality and time tag
• Event of protection equipment with quality and time tag
Protocol Features

Application Layer On-demand transmission (e. g. single

indications, analogs, ...)
Spontaneous transmission (e. g. single
indications with time tag, ...)
Direct command transmission (with select
before operate)
Clock synchronization
File Transfer
Address Space Common Address of ASDU: 1..65535
Information object address: 1..16777215
Available Protocol Stacks

IEC 60870-5-104, Master IEC 62351-3: encryption of ASDU

telegrams using TLS protocol with X.509
certificates to protect the transport layer.
The TLS versions 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 are
supported. Version 3 of the X.509
certificates must be available. These
certificates may contain RSA, DSA and ECC
keys. The configuration enables data size
limitation of the remote station
certificate, several certification
authorities to check the remote station
certificate and an extendable list of
encryption procedures supported.

IEC 60870-5-104, Slave  Implements the controlled station

functionality specified in the 
IEC 60870-5-104 protocol. 
Difference :-

IEC 60870-5-101 IEC 60870-5-104

Serial transmission of data(e.g. using Packet oriented and is based on TCP/IP transmission.
RS-232 and FSK based modems)
FT1.2 frame definition. Control information is called application
protocol control information (APCI)
Supports partyline (polling, multipoint, multidrop, only defined for point-to-point operation
unbalanced) as well as point-to-point (balanced)
operating mode
Defined by a one or two byte so called link address. Addressing is done by IP address and TCP port
number.
Uses timestamp of type CP24Time2a,that can Uses CP56Time2a which extends the one hour to 100
represent timing information from one hour down to years
a millisecond
Similiarities :-

• Regarding protocol design both know an application protocol data unit (APDU).

• Both protocols divide a telegram into control information (start byte length of telegram, control  information) and
application data.

• The tasks of the control information are connection establishment, retransmission and acknowledge of data as well as
flow control.

•  This is true for both protocols although TCP is already supporting a reliable end-to-end connection that handles errors
and packet loss.To test the availability and correct operation of a substation there are test functions used with IEC-101
(test function for link layer, linktest) as well as IEC-104 (Test-APDU, TESTFR, test frame).If errors are detected, the
connection is terminated and re-established.
References :-
https://www.ipcomm.de/protocol/IEC104/en/sheet.html
https://www.ipcomm.de/protocol/IEC101/en/sheet.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60870-5
G. Clarke, D. Reynders and E. Wright, Practical Modern SCADA
Protocols, Newnes, 2004.