?What are the advantages and disadvantages of ATM?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Due to its range of features, such as high transfer speeds, various classes of service, and ability to operate over many types of media and network topologies (LANs as well as WANs), ATM has a number of significant advantages. ATM can support a wide range of applications with varying bandwidths, at a wide range of transmission speeds. Cell switching, which is performed by ATM's high-speed, hardware-based switches that route cells down the appropriate path, is so fast that it provides short delays and high bandwidths. ATM's different classes of service allow customers to choose service type and pricing individually for each data connection (VCC). Finally, ATM is extremely versatile. It can carry voice, packet data, and video over the same facilities.?As you might expect, ATM also has a number of disadvantages. It is often more expensive than other data transmission options. The cost of ATM equipment is high. This is because the cell-switching equipment, to be capable of delivering such a fast connection, is by necessity relatively complex. Due to the complexity of ATM, there is a high learning curve for setting up and managing the network. Lastly, compatible hardware and software may not be widely available.?ATM is now being heavily used by the large telecommunications carriers (AT&T, Sprint, and so on) to provide voice and Internet services. Because of its complexity and cost, smaller businesses have been reluctant to use ATM. Alternate technologies that can offer reasonably comparable speeds at much lower costs have, however, attracted much attention from smaller businesses. One attractive alternative to ATM on a local area network is high-speed Ethernet, which has transfer speeds hitting 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps. Metropolitan area networks are also seeing a growth in high-speed Ethernet, as it is chosen over ATM.?Recently, ATM network are starting to lose ground to MPLS over Internet routers and virtual private networks (VPNs).?