Switched WAN Technologies

Wide Area Networks (WANs) exist to carry other people's traffic for a fee. The evolution of WAN technologies has been driven by the availability of physical media. This tutorial discusses WAN technologies from the physical media perspective. This historical perspective starts with classic WAN technologies such as X25; proceeds to the broadband technologies of frame relay, ISDN, and ATM; and completes the picture by looking at optical networks and emerging technologies. The author also looks at traffic management/traffic shaping, the edge technologies of frame relay and ATM, and WAN core technologies such as SONET and SDH.

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