The use of high-speed packet switching technology for supporting switched multi-megabit data service

The authors present a brief overview of the kinds of technologies capable of supporting the switched multimegabit data service (SMDS). SMDS has been defined in a technology-independent manner and can be supported by a number of packet switching technologies, two of which are highlighted. One of them, a 150 Mb/s Metrocore prototype of a shared-medium transwitch, is currently demonstratable with switching functions distributed among nodes. The capacity of such a shared-medium network can be increased by adding parallel channels. The other, the Batcher-banyan packet switch, can support a significant amount of traffic with a more traditional centralized architecture and parallel service processors.<
>