Video and Audio Streams Over an IP/ATM Wide Area Network

This is a survey of the state of the art in delivering IP services over ATM networks, as it stands in the second quarter of 1997. It also includes a look at the alternatives to that set of technologies. The technology and the choices are changing "on the fly", and have evolved significantly during the course of this project. Moreover, the issues are not exclusively technical, but in many respects reflect the great schism in the data communications world: connection-oriented versus connectionless networks. We have tried to present the technical issues and solutions along with an unbiased overview of the more "philosophical" issues. We indicate how we think the technology and the installed base of equipment is going to develop over the next few years, in order to give a picture of the future of ATM in data networking.