Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Telematics International Inc has announced a raft of new products in the Frame Relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode markets. Called NETFrameXchange, the Frame Relay product line offers three backbone models providing switching capacities from 30,000 to 150,000 switched frames per second, with support for from 24 to 224 T1/E1 ports. The backbone products use a RISC-based customised three-chip switching architecture on a single board with 10,000 frames per second switching: multiple boards extend this upwards. There is support for ANSI and CCITT interfaces, and the products also incorporate Fairway, a backbone internodal protocol for bandwidth management. This proprietary protocol also allows for the prioritisation of traffic on a per-Permanent Virtual Circuit basis, in a similar way to the technology announced last week by Cisco Systems Inc and StrataCom Inc. No word yet on pricing, but availability is expected in May of next year. Among the other Frame Relay launches are two adaptors and four access systems that between them support X25, SNA, async, bisync, facsimile, TCP/IP, X75 and the ASC/SLC airline protocols. Prices start at $3,400, and availability is expected from January. Telematics has also announced a migration path to the products for existing users of its ACP and PCP models. Telematics’ Asynchronous Transfer Mode strategy is focused on the providers of network services, where it feels its strengths lie: the new products, named AToM, include backbone, access and adaption layer systems for controlled release in late 1993. The line centres around the AToM chassis, which can be configured as a backbone, access or adaption system. It has 16 slots, and supports a combination of T1/E1 and T3 links as well as 155Mbps OC3 connections. With claimed throughput of 1m cells per second and bandwidth of 2.5Gbps, it supports Frame Relay, Bitsync, Asynchronous Transfer Mode and clear channel services. The main distinction Telematics is claiming with the Asynchronous Transfer products is what it calls the Subscriber-Oriented Virtual Network: this is similar to virtual private networking but supports dynamic partitioning and subscriber definition so any element can belong to several virtual networks. AToM also incorporates a management system based on Hewlett-Packard Co’s OpenView and X700-oriented architectures, and the company is introducing a migration plan for existing customers.
