I.T. Times
Volume 5, No 2 Information Technology News of the University of California, Davis November 1996


About the I.T. Times
Featured Articles
Online Exclusives
Project Updates
At Home on the Web
CommuniCAIT - news from the Center for Advanced Information Technology

This Month's Statistics
You Asked
Back Issues></A><br>

<A HREF=Index by Topic
Talk to us - email link
   

Network 21 Reaches Beyond Campus

The idea of networking has not been lost on Ricardo Carnauba. Inspired by Network 21's ATM design, Carnauba came here from Brazil to see how the campus will transition to the new high-speed fiber optic network.

And he is taking notes.

An employee of Telebras, the Brazilian government-run communications company, Carnauba's job is to investigate new networking technologies to introduce in Brazil. Every year Telebras funds employee travel to other countries for technology research.

After discovering the Network 21 home page on the World Wide Web, Carnauba decided UC Davis would be a good place to be because of the integration of ATM technology into the campus network design.

Short for Asynchronous Transfer Mode, ATM is the term for the technical standard that permits the simultaneous delivery of voice, video, and data to the desktop.

Carnauba, who in 1979 spent a year at Davis High as part of a student exchange program, sent an e-mail message to Communications Resources expressing his interest in the ATM migration. He soon had a telephone interview with Communications Resources directors who determined that the exchange would be a good one.

Telebras is orchestrating the migration to ATM technology in Brazil. In fact, Carnauba's own department served as the site for the pilot program. While Telebras is waiting for a delivery of cabling that will allow them to expand this network, Carnauba is learning about the plans here at UC Davis to incorporate ATM switching into Network 21.

Shortly after his arrival in Davis, Carnauba sent e-mail to his supervisor. "I told him to slow down the migration and wait for me to come back." The delay in the cabling delivery might serve as a benefit, Carnauba says, because he will return home with knowledge to share.

"It's a beautiful migration plan, very detailed," said Carnauba, who has studied the proposal submitted by 3Com Corporation, the vendor selected to install the ATM switching devices and other Network 21 electronics.

Carnauba is enthused about the opportunities ATM technology will bring to networking. "People won't have to have one cable for voice, one for television; they will be integrated," says Carnauba. "It will be a gigantic step in people's lives."

The successful integration of ATM technology, notes Carnauba, requires the amalgamation of many different areas of expertise.

And for these next few months, this shared knowledge has crossed borders, in small but important ways.


-- Report Submitted by Aviva Luria