Advanced Communications Systems

The Advanced Communications Systems Project is concerned with new communication technologies that can support a wide range of different communication applications in the context of large public networks. Communication networks in common use today have been tailored to specific applications and while they perform their assigned functions well, they are difficult to adapt to new uses. There currently are no general purpose networks, rather there are telephone networks, low-speed data network and cable television networks. As new communication applications proliferate, it becomes clear that in the long term, a more flexible communication infrastructure will be needed. The Integrated Service Digital Network concept provides a first step in that direction. We are concerned with the next generation of systems that will ultimately succeed ISDN. The main focus of the effort in the ACS project is a particular switching technology we call broadcast packet switching. The key attributes of this technology are (1) the ability to support connections of any data rate from a few bits per second to over 100 Mb/s, (2) the ability to support flexible multi-point connections suitable for entertainment video, LAN interconnection and voice/video teleconferencing, (3) the ability to efficiently support bursty information sources, (4) the ability to upgrade network performance incrementally as technology improves and (5) the separation of information transport functions from applications-dependent functions so as to provide maximum flexibility for future services