The concept of switching Internet Protocol or IP traffic directly over Asynchronous Transfer Mode networks at Layer 2 has been all the rage ever since Ipsilon Networks Inc unleashed the technique on a bandwidth-hungry world last year (CI No 2,923), and the established vendors are racing to catch up. Cisco Systems Inc, supplier of most of the routers that users curse whenever the Internet grinds to a halt, is the primary target for the new technique, but has come up with its own tag-switching approach. Last week, Madge Networks NV announced its own IP switching extension to its LANswitch (CI No 3,082), and today, IBM Corp, 3Com Corp and Cascade Communications Corp are due to play catch-up by joining forces on IP switching technology, which is claimed to speed up Internet throughput five-fold.
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