A band of industry heavyweights has sided with Vancouver, British Columbia-based PMC-Sierra Inc in its war with the Desktop ATM25 Alliance to establish the basis for a 25Mbps Asynchronous Transfer Mode standard (CI No, 2,545). Cabletron Systems Inc, Cisco Systems Inc, Fore Systems Inc, Bell Northern Research, Cascade Communications Corp and DSC Corp have all backed PMC-Sierra’s UNI-PHY-25 proposal for 25Mbps Asynchronous Mode, ranging them against the likes of IBM Corp, Madge Networks BV and Chipcom Corp, all founder members of the Desktop ATM25 Alliance (CI No 2,506). While it looked just a fortnight ago as if Sierra would be going it alone with its submission to the ATM Forum, the added muscle of key players from the broadband communications industry seems likely to turn the issue into a political, as well technical one, for the ATM Forum, which had previously decided that a low-speed Asynchronous Transfer Mode standard was not needed. The UNI-PHY-25 specification has been submitted to the ATM Forum’s forthcoming meeting to be held in Kyoto, Japan.
