Telecommunications giant AT&T Tuesday
debuted its broadband local Asynchronous Transfer Mode
services and announced plans to offer their services in 41 U.S. cities this year.
In related news, AT&T also debuted Local Transparent LAN Services featuring
seamless, LAN-to-LAN connectivity on AT&T’s ATM network platform.
The new services can provide businesses with one national vendor for
end-to-end, transparent local area network connectivity. The high-speed
AT&T services are now available in Los Angeles, Oakland, Calif.,
Phoenix and Portland, Oregon.
By April, AT&T ATM services will be available in Baltimore, Boston,
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Hartford, Conn.,
Houston, Kansas City, Mo., Minneapolis/St. Paul, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh,
St. Louis, Sacramento, Calif., San Francisco and Tampa, Fla.
Services to Milwaukee, Nashville, Tenn.; New York, and Orlando, Fla., are
scheduled for May 1. Fifteen additional locations are currently scheduled
to be added in the third quarter.
AT&T Local ATM Service features include Web-based tools to monitor data
networks, self-healing network capabilities via SONET Rings and automatic
rerouting for connections between points of presence in the same LATA.
AT&T’s national and local service enhancements are supported by an ATM
service level
agreement that includes guarantees on provisioning, network availability,
restoration time, latency and throughput.
“Businesses need an end-to-end ATM solution as they continue to increase
their use of bandwidth-intensive applications, such as groupware, imaging,
telemedicine, distance learning, and video streaming,” said Joe
Lueckenhoff, product vice president for AT&T Data Network Services.
AT&T Transparent LAN Service offers a turn-key solution for the
interconnection of disparate LANs in the same 41 cities in which Local ATM
Service is available.
The TLS service includes a LAN-to-ATM Concentrator that converts LAN
traffic into ATM cells, which are then transported onto the existing AT&T
network platform. The cells are reassembled at the receiving location,
providing a seamless interconnection for users.
“Our customers are telling us they want one provider and
one network for these demanding applications. AT&T Local ATM complements
our existing ATM portfolio and gives them an end-to-end, seamless solution,” Lueckenhoff said.