From: Sean Doran[SMTP:smd@cesium.clock.org] Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 1996 2:28 PM

Finally, I assert that we are already at the point where anything that can be deployed today that is based on ATM (which incidentally typically rides over SONET/SDH) can be kludged up (or even done right) with Cisco gear and SONET/SDH. ATM has a temporary edge in being multivendor and making it easy to do TDM-style and point-to-multipoint things, however the former is likely to be short-term and the latter is something that can be done better for Internet traffic anyway, with a bit of cleverness in the latest and in the next generation of IP routers.

"IP Unter Alles", in other words, right? Okay, I'll take the bait. This past weekend, we demonstrated (1) video-conferencing, (2) streaming video, (3) 155 Mbps to the desktop Internet connectivity, and (4) connectivity to the Public Switched Telephone Network, all over our ATM OC3c backbone, simultaneously and continuously. #1 & #2 can be either IP or native ATM, and in this case we ran it over IP. #3 requires ATM, although you can get close to it using other technologies. But what about #4? Connection to the PSTN? Please explain to me how to, in a non-kludgey manner, provide the PSTN connectivity using only Cisco routers. I certainly believe that most customers would consider speaking into a microphone attached to their PC and listening to the PCs speaker just a tad on the kludgey side. Not to mention that they would need an extra sound card to avoid having to say "over" every time they were through speaking. No, I think they want to use the nifty 900Mhz Sony cordless phone they just bought at Circuit City, and have a level of service (note I avoided the dreaded 'Q' word) similar to what they get from their POTS line. Oh, and by the way, given that the local loop provider has OC-48 SONET provisioned to this particular location, we could just as easily have provisioned the connection to our backbone at OC12 as opposed to OC3. Did I miss the Cisco announcement of an OC12 IP-SONET card?

Since these routers will be needed with or without ATM, the time to ponder whether ATM really has that much added value in the long run is upon people already.

As is the time to ponder how all the various technologies can work well together. What is long past is the time to flame a technology which has already become an integral part of the Internet infrastructure, and which will remain so for a long time to come. There are plusses and minuses to the widespread deployment of ATM, just as with *any* technology, however it does have some undeniable advantages, and one of them is its ability to carry voice traffic independent of IP traffic, and to connect in a reasonably straightforward manner to the PSTN. Would you prefer to have voice traffic clogging up the IP backbone?? -- Jim Browning "My views do in fact reflect the views of my sponsor, and I am now going to go look for that asbestos suit said sponsor provides to those of us who are inclined to support the merits of ATM on Nanog"