Performance of Packetized Pipes on Their Plodding Path to Packetopia

Packet networks have been in existence for about 3 decades. Most of these networks have been designed with a particular service in mind: from Local Area Networks (LAN) for localized data applications to Packet Switched Digital Networks (PSDN) for long distance data applications. The protocols chosen for each network had been matched to the specific service. With the new high-speed packet network protocol called Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) being standardized by CCITT, these disparate services will be carried over a unified high-speed packet backbone network. There will also exist traffic types in the network, which one would not find in an ordinary packet network such as voice and video.