Voice and Video over Gigabit Ethernet and ATM Backbone Networks

Abstract

This chapter aims to report on the performance of voice and video traffic over two popular backbone network technologies, namely Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). ATM networks are being used by many universities and organizations for their unique characteristics such as scalability and guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS), especially for voice and video applications. Gigabit Ethernet matches ATM functionality by providing higher bandwidth at much lower cost, less complexity, and easier integration into the existing Ethernet technologies. It is useful to be able to compare these two technologies against various network performance metrics to find out which technology performs better for transporting voice and video conferencing. This chapter provides an in-depth performance analysis and comparison of GbE and ATM networks by extensive OPNET-based simulation. The authors measure the Quality of Service (QoS) parameters, such as voice and video throughput, end-to-end delay, and voice jitter. The analysis and simulation results reported in this chapter provide some insights into the performance of GbE and ATM backbone networks. This chapter may help network researchers and engineers in selecting the best technology for the deployment of backbone campus and corporate networks.