Vendors debut videoconferencing, ATM products

Switches videoconferencing gear and network administration tools were among the products announced earlier this month at the ComNet show in Washington D.C.

In switching N.E.T. Inc. unveiled a new family of Asynchronous Transfer Mode products representing the company's first major venture into that up-and-coming market. Tom Flak N.E.T.'s ATM product marketing manager said the company's new Promina 4000 ATM switch is geared for mission-critical applications requiring high-bandwidth availability and is built on a scalable architecture to offer switching capacity ranging from 622 megabit/sec to 10 gigabit/sec.

The switch initially will support interfaces running at 45 megabit/sec (T-3) and 155 megabit/sec (OC-3) with support for 622-megabit interfaces planned in the future.

N.E.T. also introduced the Promina 2000 ATM Network Multiplexer a product for users who want to bring non-ATM traffic into an ATM backbone. This product provides ATM access at 1.5 megabit/sec (T-1) - to accommodate the majority of users in the near term - up to OC-3 speeds. Each system can be configured for up to 64 T-1 ports 16 T-3 ports or 16 OC-3 ports Flak said.

In addition N.E.T. announced CellXpress ATM modules which give users of the company's IDNX backbone networks access to ATM services. N.E.T. also unveiled its PanaVue network management system an application that runs on top of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s OpenView management platform.

N.E.T. officials said they expect the products to be made available to federal agencies via N.E.T.'s Air Force Integrated Data Telecommunications Network contract and the company's General Services Administration schedule contract.

Sony Offers Videoconferencing

Sony Electronics Inc. introduced the TriniCom 3000 a workgroup videoconferencing system that comes with a built-in multipoint capability. Up to three sites can be connected in a videoconferencing session without the use of an external multipoint control unit which can be expensive.

"Users can see all sites at the same time or choose the site they wish to see " said Laura Hardin marketing manager of videoconferencing systems for Sony Electronics.

The TriniCom 3000 also comes with a motion-sensitive camera that automatically tracks a selected person around a room.

Sony also announced the TriniCom Mini 1000 workgroup system which allows users to conduct a videoconferencing data collaboration on the same screen. The product includes the motion-sensitive object tracking camera and comes with a high resolution (1 600-by-1 200) 20-inch monitor.

Both products will be available on Sony's GSA schedule in April.

WAN Trouble-Shooting

Network General Corp. meanwhile introduced the WAN Sniffer Analyzer NB a portable product that will allow network administrators to find problems on wide-area networks.

The product can decode WAN frames and encapsulated local-area network traffic across the WAN.Users want to know what the router and LAN are doing to their WAN packets said Greg Hampton director of marketing at Network General's wide-area/broadband business unit. "Sometimes routing of traffic isn't efficient and it can get to be expensive " Hampton said. The analyzer tells administrators whether the problem is the WAN service the router the logical communications path or the application.

The WAN Sniffer Analyzer NB runs on a notebook computer and can be transported easily and used at remote office sites Hampton said.

Resellers Wang Federal Inc. ECS Technologies and McBride & Associates will add the product to their GSA schedules. Government users will receive a 35 percent discount off the regular list price of $9 995.