Essential Guide to Telecommunications, The, Third Edition

ATM—ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER MODE

ATM, or asynchronous transfer mode, is a high-speed (up to 30 Gigabits) switching service capable of carrying voice, data, video and multimedia images. ATM is used primarily in Frame Relay networks and in newer carrier networks. The key advantage of ATM is that it enables providers and end users to carry multiple types of traffic without building separate networks for voice, video and data. Currently, many carriers have separate networks for voice, Frame Relay and Internet traffic. They merge the traffic in the core over SONET and dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM). (See Figure 6.12.) It was thought that IP routers in converged networks would replace ATM. However, because of ATM's superior quality of ...