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With ATM, users have flexible access to network resources and can achieve a satisfactory balance between performance and cost.
A synchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) has been conceived as a multiservice and cell-based technology ideal for supporting a wide variety of traffic types and access methods. Interest in ATM services and the use of ATM as a backbone transport technology is exploding as users demand seamless integration of voice, data and video for access to multimedia applications. Practically every major carrier in the United States now offers the service at the local or interexchange level. A study conducted this past fall among domestic and international carriers by Distributed Networking Associates Inc. of Greensboro, N.C., shows that among enterprise users worldwide ATM usage in 1998 grew 75 percent over the previous year.
In any discussion of ATM, a comparison with frame relay is invariably suggested. The history and development of these technologies have followed similar paths. Some think they are competitive because they provide similar transmission capabilities to users. But both frame relay and ATM are settling into their own comfortable niches, for the most part based on bandwidth and application considerations.
In general, frame relay is suitable up to at least T1 speeds for remote access, while ATM can ramp to speeds exceeding OC-3 and is best suited as a network backbone. Some 77 percent of enterprise ATM users are operating backbone networks at T3 speeds or faster-up to OC-12 (see Table 1).
Steven Taylor, president of Distributed Networking Associates, said the survey indicates that ATM has "pretty decent worldwide growth in the market at 75 percent" (61 percent in the United States and 92 percent in the remainder of the world). In comparison, he added, when frame relay had a similar size customer base, it was growing at a level of thousands of customers, compared to ATM's hundreds (See Table 2).
"So even at a 75-percent growth rate, which is really fantastic, it's going to take a long time for ATM to get to...