IMA integration for the low end 3Com rolls OnStream technology into its AccessBuilder product line >BY DENISE PAPPALARDO

Asynchronous transfer mode has been deemed the wide area network technology for large corporations. Yet 3Com Corp. last week rolled out additions to its AccessBuilder product line that will economically allow carriers to offer low-speed ATM services to customers at small and remote offices.

3Com has integrated OnStream Networks' Inverse Multiplexing for ATM (IMA) technology into its AccessBuilder 9300 and has also integrated OnStream's ATM-to-frame relay interworking into its AccessBuilder 9010. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based 3Com recently acquired OnStream and incorporated it as the broadband access division (Telephony, Oct. 14, page 7). 3Com also integrated OnStream's CS600 ATM access concentrator into its AccessBuilder 9600 product line.

"The integration to the 3Com line went much faster than expected," said Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corp., a Voorhees, N.J., consultancy. "They have gone forward with radical low-end products." Other internetworking companies such as Cisco Systems and Bay Networks have not historically been good at integrating newly acquired product lines, Nolle said.

The AccessBuilder 9300 supports a variety of wide area network interfaces, including ATM, T-1, T-3, frame relay and IMA support for up to four T-1 connections. In the local area network, the device supports both Ethernet and IBM switched digital loop carrier traffic, as well as three expansion slots that let customers migrate up to OC-3 ATM.

The 9010 supports a single T-1 connection, letting users migrate voice, video and data onto their ATM service.

The products offer customers a "great degree of expandability from structured T-1 for voice and video to OC-3 support for local work groups," said David Yates, vice president of marketing at 3Com's broadband access division. Structured T-1, constant bit rate (CBR) traffic lets the network look at individual DS-0s-an economic necessity for smaller sites, he said. Unstructured T-1 CBR uses an entire T-1, requiring too much bandwidth for branch offices.

"Carriers are looking for a family of products for the end of their services, for any of their customer sites," Yates said. The AccessBuilder now offers carriers the flexibility to support ATM services at remote offices and corporate headquarters.

The tight integration of the new products with 3Com's SuperStack architecture is particularly interesting, Nolle said. "That makes these products some of the most flexible with LAN-to-carrier interfaces available in the marketplace," he said.

SuperStack II is 3Com's work group network architecture that includes features such as port switching, token ring switching, 100baseT support, RMON2 monitoring and video LAN support.

3Com's SuperStack II architecture adds modular functionality for a variety of LAN interfaces, said Jean Hammond, director of strategy development for WAN operations at 3Com. -Denise Pappalardo was East Coast Bureau Chief at the time this story was written.