General DataComm Inc. (GDC) in two weeks will announce a collection of ATM and frame relay access devices at NetWorld+Interop 98.
"They can't sell just ATM switches anymore," said Curtis Price, an analyst with Pyramid Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, referring to GDC's APEX ATM gear. "The trend now is to move more downscale to sell the access devices that can backhaul to the switch."
The new products include the AT-1000, an ATM network termination device that sits between the carrier and corporate ATM nets.
The AT-1000 can be used by a corporation to take in two ATM lines, one designated as a primary link and the other as a backup.
The product can also monitor the flow of cells in and out of the corporate network to keep track of service-level agreements on as many as 256 virtual circuits.
The three-slot chassis can handle single-port T-1, T-3 or OC-3 ATM cards. The chassis costs US$5,500 and is available now.
GDC will also introduce three Multiservice Access Concentrators (MAC). The MAC 100 feeds 10M bit/sec Ethernet LAN traffic or serial traffic at up to 1.5M bits per second onto an ATM network and can perform frame relay-to-ATM interworking.
The MAC 200 can connect two separate Ethernet LANs to a T-1 or fractional T-1 frame relay network. MAC 300 can also tie two separate Ethernet LANs to a T-1 or fractional T-1 frame relay network, but also has a T-1 interface to connect to a PBX and convert voice into frame relay. Later this year, a software upgrade will enable the MAC 300 to put LAN and voice traffic on ATM WANs.
The MAC 100 costs $4,500. The MAC 200 starts at $1,800, and the MAC 300 starts at $3,500.
GDC: (203) 574-1118.
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