NEC Corp has officially announced its Asynchronous Transfer Mode-based local network multimedia system and enhanced protocol system to deliver multimedia-on-demand. The system is the product of a joint development effort by NEC’s Research Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey and in Miyazakidai near Tokyo. Technically the system is based on NEC’s desktop Asynchronous Transfer Mode switch, called Atomis 5, which includes a multimedia server and several workstations acting as client terminals. The system enables client terminals to access and share high-quality video, sound and pictures stored in the server, over 150Mbps lines. The capacity for the switch is 2.4Gbps. Initially the fruits of the research work are being used in proposals in the US market, which NEC expects to develop more quickly than in Japan, in fields such as video-on-demand, catalogue shopping, and electronic yellow pages. NEC expects to play a role as a supplier of multimedia devices, in particular the Asynchronous Transfer Mode switch which is the central key device in the system, while relying on other suppliers for the software for the system.
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