ATM stands for Asynchronous Transfer Mode . It is mainly facilitated by the telecommunication companies and is the basic standard for the ISDN.

ATM is the accepted transfer mode for Braodband Integrated Services Digital Networks (BISDN) by the authority.

ATM is able to handle any sort of information we send on the network like data,text,voice in the integrated mode.

ATM also provides a good flexibility with respect to bandwidth and is used for local area and the wide area network.

The Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) was developed to enable a single data networking standard to be used for both synchronous channel networking and packet-based networking.

Asynchronous transfer mode will provide the variable levels of quality for the packet traffic of data.

Basic asynchronous transfer mode system

There are two basic elements to an ATM system. Any system can be made up a number of each of these elements:

• ATM switch    :  This will accepts the information from the source in form of packets which is coming from the switch or an fixed end point. It will read the information or update the information and will mould the cell towards the destination point.

• ATM end point    :  This contains the adapter for enabling the data coming or leaving the network  to the external world. Example include the workstations , LAN switches ,video codecs and etc.