The commercial satellite communication industry has requested Glenn Research Center
to assist them in the area of hybrid satellite/terrestrial networks and interoperability
issues. One of the major topics of interest is ATM over satellite. Standards are continually
evolving. As such, we are actively participating in a variety of standards-making bodies
including the ATM Forum, the
Telecommunication Industry
Association (TIA) and the International Telecommunications
Union (ITU).
ATM Forum
Wireless ATM
The Wireless ATM working group of the ATM Forum develops the standards related to support of ATM transmission over wireless
media. The most relevent issues to the satellite industry that are being
pursued within the ATM Forum are the following:
1. Handover
As the mobile end-device moves through the network, the network must
transfer transparently the endpoints of the connection to the application.
The question "How does the network efficiently reroute the
routing path when the endpoint(s) keep changing?" is answered here.
2. Addressing
The addressing of network devices for the purposes of mobility is an
issue. Will the ID track the end-device as it moves through the network or
will the end-device be assigned a new ID as it moves?
3. Location Management
"How does the network find the mobile end-device to which another end-device requests a connection?" This question is researched here.
Voice Telephony Over ATM (VTOA)
Develops the standards associated with
delivering ATM to the desktop environment and also wireless trunking of
voice channels from non-ATM mobile cellular base stations.
Traffic Management
Control congestion and addresses other traffic management issues.
Residential Broadband (RBB)
Defines the residential use of ATM and
access to the network from the residential environment.
TIA ATM Working Group
Reference Models
Develops reference models and the reference terms for ATM use in satellite and terrestrial networks. Of key
importance is the interaction of terrestrial and satellite networks.
Common Air Interface
Media requirements that the ATM Standards should give to
satellite manufacturers via the TIA so that they can build their
equipment and systems to support the specified range of services.
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
We work with the ITU-R Working Party 4B, a radio
systems study group of the ITU, which supports transmission of
ATM traffic by means of satellite. The current
studies concentrate on two areas:
ATM quality of service issues
for input into ITU-T document I.356, "B_ISDN ATM Layer Cell Transfer
Performance," and reference and performance models for satellite systems
carrying ATM traffic for input into draft recommendation ITU-R S.atm, "Transmission of
ATM Traffic via Satellite."
William D. Ivancic
William.D.Ivancic@grc.nasa.gov
Telephone: (216) 433-3494
