A method for briding the LAN and WAN for multimedia networking

There are various technical challenges associated with the transmission of integrated audio, video, and data for multimedia applications. The transmission of the multimedia data will span the local and wide areas domains, both public and private. Isochronous services along with Ethernet in the form of IEEE 802.9a isoEthernet will provide the integrated data transport needs in the local area. Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) has the provisioning which will meet the high speed large bandwidth wide area transmission need. Thus, a bridge between isoEthernet and ATM whereby all the multimedia networking technical requirements are addressed will allow multimedia applications to run between users residing across local area and wide area connections. The paper discusses a bridging method for allowing the transmission of integrated audio, video, and data for multimedia applications spanning isoEthernet in the local area network and ATM in the wide area network.