A description is presented of the Alcatel Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), a high-speed network with LAN performance for wide areas. The distributed queued dual bus (DQDB) access method for MAN is standardized under IEEE 802.6 and is compatible with the future asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) B-ISDN. The MAN cannot only be used as a stopgap, it offers the possibility of using ATM as an additional switching system
Date of Conference: 13-16 May 1991