By Roger D. Pience
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (A TM) has taken the telecommunications and cable television world by storm. It is widely recognized to be the only technology that bridges each element of the emerging National Information Infrastructure (Nil); i.e., interoperability between telephone, data and computer networks and cable television and multimedia networks. For the management executive, this paper will explore the various business applications and benefits of A TM along with a contrasting historical perspective of other technologies. The engineer will be presented with the technical aspects of the medium, from network applications and network architecture to basic details of the A TM protocol layers. In summary the paper will examine where the applications of the technology for cable television industry (e.g., video-on-demand or multimedia), and ATM integrate various network architecture's.