B-ISDN
The development of ATM was started by CCITT (now ITU-T) as the core technology of the future Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN)
The idea was, that the PSTN would evolve as follows:
- Narrowband ISDN would be implemented by digitalizing the local loops of a digital telephone network
- Broadband ISDN would be the next step including e.g:
- Distribution of digital audio and video
- A customer-premises broadband LAN
The standardization process at CCITT was slow
ATM Forum (ATMF) was formed by American manufacturers of communications equipment to speed things up
ATMF aimed at interoperable working solutions fast
This lead into two parallel standardization processes
ATM is today mainly used in LAN-interconnection