Warrendale, Pennsylvania-based Asynchronous Transfer Mode equipment major Fore Systems Inc and Chicago, Illinois-based cable television equipment market leader General Instrument Corp have announced plans to develop an Asynchronous Transfer-based cable modem network system. The 25Mbps system is designed to enable broadband telecommunications operators to deliver full motion video in real time to the personal computer, as well as enabling access to the Internet, to on-line services, and to a multimedia library of compact disk titles to be made available on demand. The modem network system will be based on an end-to-end Asynchronous Mode system. Servers and content gateways at the cable head-end are being designed to be connected through Fore Systems’ Asynchronous Mode switches to a head-end processor which will be jointly developed by Fore and General Instrument. The processor will send traffic downstream over a hybrid fibre-coaxial system infrastructure to a cable modem from General Instrument that connects to a personal computer equipped with a standard Network Interface Card. Upstream traffic will travel down the same path in reverse at lower speeds. General Instrument is developing a specialised network navigator for use with the system. There is no word at the moment on the delivery timetable.
