>A worldwide fabric of IP-over-SONET and IP-over-bent-coathangers and IP-over- >tin-cups-and-string is _going_ to occur, and soon. >A worldwide fabric of end-to-end ATM may or may not occur, depending on the >PR capabilities of the folks who think it's the right way to go. The reality here is that today there is a wide deployment of SONET and it is accelerating. A year ago, ATM was the hottest "new" technology and everyone was rushing to integrate it into their products. Since ATM assumes a high speed, reliable transport network, SONET is the best choice. Thus began a movement by SONET equipment vendors to merge the ATM switch functions with the already available SONET mux. Of course, the growth of the Internet has changed all that and IP has emerged as a end-to-end protocol that is here today with fairly ubiquitous deployment. I suspect you will see the emergence of a IP/SONET mux this year. mm mm sssss nnnnnn * Bharat Ranjan * m m m s nnnnnnn * Network Engineer * m m m sssss nn nn * Microsoft On-Line Services * m m s nn nn * (206)-936-0471 * m m sssss nn nn * bharatr@microsoft.com * ******************************************************* * The opinions/ideas in this memo are not necessarily * * those of Microsoft Corp. * *******************************************************