An open environment for ATM broadband multimedia applications

Advances in trasmission and switching technologies promise a flexible and efficient Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN), based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), able to meet the increasing demand of high speed services. Multimedia applications are in particular expected to play a key role in B-ISDN success. The paper wants to outline the architecture of an open environment based on a multimedia workstation for ATM developed in the framework of the Italian Information Technology project called Piano Finalizzato Telecomunicazioni (PFT). Design guidelines, interfaces and capabilities are described. After introducing the basic workstation architecture, some aspects of relevant multimedia applications and of the user interface are discussed.