ATM versus IP for Voice over IP

Abstract

Being packet or cell switching technologies, both IP (Internet Protocol) and ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) have been competitor of each other for a long time based on business needs, features, functions and capabilities. Suitability of ATM and IP for carrying voice and the advantages of one over the other has been a contradictory issue. On one hand IP (Internet Protocol) has the lead of being preferred choice due to lower cost, higher adoption rate and advanced features. On other hand ATM provides many advantages including higher quality of service, especially for time-sensitive materials because of its bandwidth efficiency. There are advocates of both of these technologies which claim that each is suited to particular needs and environments and not complementary of other. QoS (Quality of Service) is the main deciding factor for choosing best of these both technologies that suit the requirement of end-to-end traffic delivery. This paper shows a comparison of performance between ATM and IP for Voice over IP using OPNET simulation model. Obtained results are compared and discussed in details.