FRAME RELAY & ATM

Frame Relay and ATM are packet and cell switched technologies that allow customers to connect locations around the city, state and world together on a shared backbone.

In the beginning, when large enterprise networks needed to connect their computer systems they used private lines. While private lines are often fine to connect two locations, when you need to connect many locations, the cost goes up exponentially.

Frame Relay uses a packet switched network to connect the locations with packets as large as 1500 bytes. while Asynchronous Transfer Mode ( ATM ) uses a small fixed cell of 53 bytes, with 48 used to carry the data.

By using smaller cells, ATM is able to control the Quality of Service so that cells can be prioritized to carry voice or even video services. With ATM you can pay for the priority you need by purchasing CBR - constant bit rate, or VBR - variable bit rate, or the lowest level UBR - unspecified bit rate.

Both services are available in various sizes starting at T-1 (or in some cases fractional T-1) all the way up to DS-3 for Frame Relay and OC-3 for ATM.

MPLS

MPLS stands for MultiProtocol Label Switching. As the name implies, this protocol allows a customer with legacy protocols such as ATM, Frame Relay, & Private Line to talk to one another.

MPLS is at the top of the switched protocol hierarchy. It allows all the locations to talk to each other (meshed) without paying extra for PVCs (Private Virtual Circuits - Frame) or VCs (Virtual Circuits - ATM) for them to speak directly to one another.

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