Cool Today, Hot Tomorrow

Four technologies stand apart, heralding the coming age of networking.

LAN Switches

LAN switches handle the heavier traffic that multimedia applications generate on networks by delivering more usable bandwidth to each desktop. They do this without requiring any change to the desktop; users keep their existing Ethernet or token-ring adapter cards in their PCs.

The most useful switching products will be those that can be modified to handle connections to higher-speed networking backbone technologies. While many of the switches already support FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) and F ast Ethernet connections, the switches that will truly play a major role in corporate networks are those that can accommodate ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) backbone connections.

Asynchronous Transfer Mode

ATM is the RISC architecture of the networking world: It uses fixed, 53-byte cells. This size is a compromise between the very long packets that would yield the best network performance and the very short frames that would give voice and video the smoothest functioning. Some argue that ATM is a kludge, but it's a kludge showing throughput of 622 Mbps, with future performance in the gigabit range. How far in the future? Considering ISDN's reception, maybe by 2000.

Voice/Data Integration

With more telecommuters and small offices requiring connectivity to corporate networks, companies are often paying for two lines to each location--one for a telephone and one to carry data. In many situations, the number of access lines to each site could be cut to one if the company could combine the voice and data traffic. Combining the two forms of traffic onto one line is becoming more practical. Some of the standout products making this type of convergence easier include:

   -- the MMV series of voice/data concentrators from Multi-Tech
      Systems 
   -- the NetRunner Integration Router from Micom Communications
   -- the HTMA 200 integrated ISDN and analog modem and the DAS 925
      product line from Motorola's Transmission Products Division

Computer Telephony Integration

For computer telephony integration, successful products will most likely be based on one or both of two approaches. The first is TAPI (telephony API), a programming interface developed by Microsoft and Intel that lets Windows applications access voice services and provides interoperability between PCs and telephone equipment. The second, the Telephony Services API, a programming interface developed by Novell and AT&T, offers a way to connect a PBX to a NetWare server and provides links between PCs and telephone equipment.

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Zooming in the 90s

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Sometime in the early 1990s, Ethernet pulled the old switcheroo, and its performance skyrocketed.