Equipment

The laboratory is equipped with an ATM LAN with the following basic components: an ATM switch, an Ethernet-ATM hub, and a FDDI and CBR (E1 and E3) to ATM adapter (AFTER). The switch is a ForeSystems-ASX200BX equipped with ten 155 Mbit/s ATM/STM-1 ports (8 multimode and 2 singlemode). The Ethernet-ATM hub (Fore Systems PowerHub 6000) has four 10 Mb/s Ethernet ports and one ATM/STM-1 multimode port. The AFTER equipment is a prototype developed in one of the projects of the Spanish Broadband Program (PLANBA) and it includes two constant-bit-rate ports (2 and 34 Mbit/s), an additional FDDI port (DAS) and one ATM/STM-1 multimode port. An ATM/SDH traffic analyzer (HP 75000 Broadband Series Test System) completes the basic equipment. It includes the ATM traffic generator module, the AAL analyzer module with an interface at 155 Mbps. The laboratory has several Sun workstations with ATM cards (Fore SBA-200E). Also, the laboratory provides with different multimedia equipment, such as, video boards and cameras. Furthermore, the UPC has an ATM backbone used for interconnecting all the LANs of the Campus and different auditoriums for distributed presentations within the Campus. The laboratory is linked to the European ATM Pilot network (JAMES) through the ATM node in Barcelona of the Telefónica ATM network (GIGACOM) by means of a single-mode fiber-optic access.

Currently this platform is capable of providing the following communication services: ATM native user-network-interfaces on multimode fibres using STM1/ATM interfaces at 155.52 Mbit/s; ATM access through Classical IP (RFC1577) and Fore IP; ATM Forum based LAN Emulation (V.: 1.0) on top of ATM; Interconnection of LANs through ATM, giving support to 802.3 and FDDI. Also, it includes SMDS services; Circuit Emulation through ATM at 2 Mbit/s and 34 Mbit/s; N-ISDN Basic Access; Multicast IP services. Mbone access (tunneling facilities); and Internet Access.

In the next future the platform will provide also these services: Upgraded Ethernet / ATM hub; Network Management Tool for integrated management of all the equipment; ATM native user-network-interfaces on UTP5; ISDN Primary Access; ATM traffic generation equipment with MPEG analyzer module; Computer network access through mobile terminals (DECT); and IPv6 routing facilities when commercially available.