An Introduction to ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) Networks
The standards for ATM were first developed in the mid 1980s. The goal was to design a single networking strategy that could transport real-time video and audio as well as image files, text and email.
ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) has been proposed as an enabling network technology to support broadband integrated services. Currently voice, data and video are transported by different networks. Voice is transported by the public telephone network, and data by a variety of packet-switched networks. Video is transported by networks based on coaxial cables, satellites and radio waves. ATM is designed to integrate all these services together.
However, ATM itself is not a complete, stand-alone networking standard; rather, ATM defines a common layer of interoperability called the ATM layer, on which various services ranging from telephony and video conferencing to TCP/IP data networking and multimedia can be delivered.
