ATM

Communications Systems Glossary

Communications Systems — Switching — ATM

Information on ATM

ATM is a cell-switching and multiplexing technology designed to combine the benefits of circuit switching (constant transmission delay and guaranteed capacity) with those of packet switching (flexibility and efficiency for intermittent traffic) through the use of small, fixed-length cells (53 bytes). For wide area networking, Asynchronous Transfer Mode is currently being standardised for use in Broadband Integrated Services Digital Networks (BISDN) by the ITU and ANSI. Unlike X.25, ATM does not provide error control and flow control mechanisms.

Other topics in our resources on Communications Systems related to ATM include: 

ATM adaptation layer (AAL) Broadband integrated services digital network (BISDN) Cell relay Cell

Virtual circuit (VC) Available Bit Rate (ABR) Message switching Circuit switching

Unconstrained Bit Rate (UBR) Packet switching Constant Bit Rate (CBR) Variable Bit Rate (VBR)

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