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Cambridge Area Committee


IEE International Lecture 1996

The Evolution of MAN - High Speed Connectivity for Local Area Networks

Professor J Hullett
Australian Telecommunications Research Institute

The International Lecture has become one of the Institution's major annual prestige events. In 1996 it is being presented by Professor John Hullett from the Australian Telecommunications Research Institute at Curtin University, Perth. The subject will be "The evolution of MAN - High Speed Connectivity for Local Area Networks". This lecture is being given in Hong Kong, Munich, London, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Turin and Singapore. Professor Hullett has chosen Cambridge as a particularly appropriate venue.

The lecture will be given in the Wolfson Hall, Churchill College, Cambridge on Wednesday 20 March 1996, commencing at 7.00 p.m. The lecture will be followed by a Reception and Dinner in the Club Room, Churchill College.

Further details from Mr Malcolm Dee
62 Lyles Road
Cottenham
Cambridge, CB4 4QR.
Tel: 01223 865211(W); 01954 250387 (H)
Fax: 01223 865866

Synopsis

Early demand for wide-area broadband networks is being driven by the need to extend the operational range of Local Area Networks (LANs) and to cater for new services such as multimedia. The new type of broadband network which can offer LAN performance within a metropolis is the Metropolitan Area Network or MAN. For wide-area operation, the industry is moving within the ITU to develop the Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network, or B_ISDN, which will provide a complete range of services from telephony through television to data. Information for all services within the B_ISDN and MAN is conveyed and switched in irregularly occurring fixed-size segments called cells. This method of information handling is referred to as the Asynchronous Transfer Mode, or ATM.

This lecture will describe the evolution of Metropolitan Area Networks and ATM LANs, and the development of the Distributed Queue Dual Bus (DQDB) technology on which the relevant standards are based.

Biography

John L Hullett

John Hullett is a foundation Professor of Telecommunications at the Australian Telecommunications Research Institute (ATRI), Curtin University, Western Australia. His professional interests lie in the fields of digital and optical communications and networking where he has published extensively. He is the co-patent holder, with Dr R M Newman, of the Distributed Queue Dual Bus (DQDB) patent which describes the protocol used as the basis for the IEEE 802.6 Metropolitan Area Network and the ISO shared-medium ATM LAN. During 1987-1990 he was Technical and Executive Director of QPSX Communications Ltd, the company responsible for developing the first standard MAN and the associated Switched Multimegabit Data Service. He was the inaugural winner of the Charles Todd Medal for excellence in communications.


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