Re: ATM comes and goes

[Mike Gawdun <[e-mail]>]

At 09:45 AM 5/17/96 -0400, Dharmesh Shah wrote:
>IPATMers,
>
>My two cents worth of thought on this now dead thread...
>
>I have heard that the next killer-app for ATM will be the internet.  
>Sounds good.  This should include internet from home.  I would hope that 
>the telcos, the cablecos, the utilcos would provide me with access to the 
>internet via ATM on my PC.  This could be at flat-costs depending on the 
>MCR I ask for when subscribing to the service.  There are many bandwidth 
>mongers for whom NISDN is not enough (BTW, I still use a 2400 baud modem).  
>ATM could enable ISPs to provide very flexible data-rate vs. pricing 
>options.  Is this happening now?
>
You've got to be kidding! Right?

I just returned from the ATM Forum meeting in San Jose. There are many
issues unresolved about running IP traffic over ATM. Also, the IP world
views ATM completely differently than the ATM Forum, so these issues need
resolution also. 

You have another problem, the bus speed of your PC is incapable of
supporting 100 Mbps Ethernet at throughputs above 20 Mbps, so how useful
will it be to connect to an ATM network when the PC can't handle the firehose.

If I can't get past the Internet backbone congestion and Web site port
contention that I experience everyday on a 128 kbps ISDN connection, then I
will certainly not get better throughput with an ATM connection to the home. 

If you still use a 2400 bps modem today, you will see a dramatic improvement
with an ISDN line. Forget the ATM stuff, it is too far off. Most of the ATM
vendors today are building gigabit Ethernet switching products and others
are building IP switching devices to overcome the astronomical cost of ATM.
If the vendors can't get ATM costs down to the level of existing competing
technology, then ATM may be put on the backburner even further into the
future. Technologies like Frame Relay and Fast Ethernet are outselling ATM
by a factor of 20:1, so it will be a while. 
Mike Gawdun 
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