A high-performance, cell-oriented switching and multiplexing technology that utilizes fixed-length 53-octet cells to carry different types of traffic at Layer 2 on LANs, Evolving from packet-switched and ISDC technologies, cell-relay transmission is well suited for busty traffic and allows communications between devices that operate at differnt speeds. Unlike packet switching, ATM is designed for high-performance multimedia networking. The associated Layer 1 is typically SONET.

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