Emulating ATM Network Impairments in the Laboratory

ATM has many advantages over other existing networking technologies, such as Frame Relay and SMDS. Its short, fixedlength cell allows switches and multiplexers to route data directly in hardware, as opposed to the slower, software-driven approach required with variable-length packets. ATM’s bandwidth-on-demand feature means that a single network can carry all types of traffic—voice, video, image, and data. In summary, ATM is an efficient, flexible technology with the ability to support multimedia traffic at extremely high rates.