In the case of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), there are many "killer" applications. Most of them are some variant of a high-bandwidth, multimedia application, such as scientific visualization, distance learning, video on demand, multimedia conferencing, etc. The widespread availability of such applications will not occur unless ATM networks become more ubiquitous, and costs are reduced.

Until these killer apps become available, there are less glamorous applications that can use ATM technology today. For existing applications to work over ATM networks, an "emulation" layer has to be inserted which emulates the services of existing networks over ATM networks The benefit of using ATM in this scenario is that existing applications get high-speed access and can continue to interwork with existing networks. To address this issue, the ATM Forum developed LAN Emulation, which runs an emulation layer atop ATM hardware to make the ATM network look like a conventional LAN such as an Ethernet or a Token Ring. LAN Emulation provides an easy migration path for network managers to move toward adopting ATM technology.

Trillium's ATM LAN Emulation White Paper provides a technical and business overview of LAN Emulation technology, such as LAN Emulation Client (LEC), LAN Emulation Server (LES) and LAN Emulation Configuration Server (LECS), as defined by the ATM Forum. It also describes Trillium product solutions for ATM LAN Emulation.

LAN Emulation White Paper