Data & voice over ATM - Recommendations for a case study

ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is a networking technology that was originally designed for carrying various multimedia services (e.g. data, voice, video..) over a unified network. This paper presents a case study, whereby a large organisation (Sheffield Hallam University-SHU), has considered to combine its telephone network services with the ATM computer network, allowing transmission of voice and data over an ATM network. The paper aims to identify key issues relating to the combination of voice and data over ATM. An evaluation process is carried out on two commercially available products; RAD ACE-101, and the circuit emulation Services (CES) module for the Cisco lightstream 1010 ATM switch. Recommendations for implementation are given at the end.