The era of multimedia communications on the public network is dawning. Video on Demand (VoD) trials are currently running in a number of countries. Other services, such as multimedia conferencing and distance learning, are also being demonstrated.
To provide a uniform and cost-effective access to multimedia services is a major challenge in a dynamic and expanding market. The Level 1 Gateway (L1GW) meets this challenge. This paper sets out to define its functionality in a clean, high-level partitioning model for a multimedia communications network. The essential functionality of a L1GW is identified as that of a 'white pages' directory server.
Three basic principles proposed with respect to the L1GW in this paper are: its use is non-mandatory, its conception and operation is service-independent and it forms a unique access point to service users (and service providers). These principles should provide secure directions for designing viable ATM-based network architectures for tomorrow's community of multimedia customers.
Michel Van Ackere received a Master of Science degree in Communications Engineering in 1984 and a PhD degree in Optical Communications in 1990 from the State University of Ghent. Since 1985, he has held technical positions as an engineer in the Alcatel Bell Telephone S12 Digital Switching System and as a software engineer in Multimedia Environments. Currently he is acting as a member of the Alcatel Bell VoD System Design team.