ATM Overview
ATM traffic consists of streams of small, fixed length, cells , routed through the network along virtual paths or circuits.
- each cell has a 5 byte header with a local VP/VC identifier and error checking;
- each cell carries 48 bytes of data payload;
- cells are routed through a series of switches by using their VPI/VCI;
- at 100 Mbps, it takes 4.4?seconds to transmit each cell;
- if the network is busy, there will be a cell timing event 230,000 times a second.