The ATM Forum reported progress on several fronts at its quarterly meeting last week in Santa Clara, California. Key developments focus on IP addressing, a new MPLS interworking mode, and new support for transporting voice and video traffic. Highlights of the meeting include:
- a new specification for IP addressing on native ATM switches advanced to straw ballot. The new standard, which would allow direct mapping of IP addressing onto an ATM switch would especially help network administrators who are upgrading their router connections from PVCs to SVCs. The common IP-ATM addressing scheme would also benefit enterprise networks that utilize IP firewall and filtering applications alongside an ATM backbone.
- adopted a new work item for ATM and MPLS interworking that adds a fourth encapsulation mode (N-to-1 Cell mode) to the original ATM/MPLS interworking specification. Each of the four encapsulation modes are optimized for certain applications or traffic characteristics. Support for the N-to-1 Cell encapsulation mode brings harmony to the related work of The ATM Forum, The MPLS Forum, the ITU and the IETF.
- adopted a new work item for ATM -- SIP interworking. This would provide optimized support for transporting IP voice and video connections over an ATM backbone.
- adopted a new work item for MPEG-4 over ATM. There is already an MPEG-2 over ATM specification (audio/video multimedia services or AMS).
- initiated a dialogue with the Metro Ethernet Forum regarding future specification roadmaps. One possibility is the development of a Metro Ethernet -- ATM interworking specification
- the ATM Forum's quarterly meeting was collocated with the Broadband Content Delivery (BCD) Forum. The MPLS Forum is co-locating some of its meetings with these organizations as well.
- the ATM Forum hosted its second Broadband Exchange event, bringing together technical experts to discuss evolving broadband technologies and applications. This quarter's Broadband Exchange focused on the architectural issues and market opportunities for content delivery networks. Presentations at the day-long meeting covered video services over DSL, video-on-demand (VOD) rollouts and market prospects, the MPEG-4 standard, backbone architectures for MSOs, and the latest trends in VOD servers.
- the next Broadband Exchange will cover 3G/4G Wireless and will be held in conjunction with the ATM Forum's upcoming technical committee meeting in April in Madrid, Spain.
