The European Switched Multimegabit Data Service, SMDS, interest group published its interface specification between customer premises and public exchange equipment at the end of June. This should be a boon for equipment manufacturers, except that only British Telecommunications Plc and SIP SpA in Italy have committed to using it in trial services. The European standard is based very closely on Bell Communications Research’s work in the US – one representative on the Interest Group’s technical team said that the aim of the exercise was to enable US and European manufacturers service the two markets with the minimum of changes. Most differences are limited to areas such as the transmission speeds and the low-level electrical interfaces. However support for the standard is patchy to say the least: Germany is apparently having political qualms about using the term Switched Multi-megabit Data Services at all, France is opting for a more Asynchronous Transfer Mode-based approach to high speed networking and the Netherlands – an early SMDS trialist – appears to be focussing its attention now on Frame Relay. The situation in Italy is confused by a number of disparate pilot studies. Meanwhile the Frame Relay Forum is establishing itself worldwide. Last week it set up a European steering committee based in Rennes, France and plans to initiate one to cover Asia. The rationale for the new body is the technical and marketing peculiarities of the continent to the east of the Atlantic, in particular, the degree to which X25 networks have established themselves. The European committee will be responsible for liaising with the local CCITT and ETSI bodies.
