ABSTRACT: This document provides the view of Telcordia on generic requirements for an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Service Access Multiplexer (SAM) to support broadband services such as Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS), Frame Relay, Cell Relay, native mode Local Area Network (LAN) interconnection and DS1/DS3 Circuit Emulation.

A SAM is intended to be the element at the edge of a public ATM network to provide a cost-effective broadband service access platform. Its basic function is to aggregate traffic from multiple broadband service access interfaces and to deliver this service traffic to a Broadband Switching System (BSS) for service feature processing and switching. By aggregating traffic to provide a highly filled interface to a BSS, a SAM may be viewed as the broadband services' analog of a remote digital terminal. The SAM function should be realizable in either a stand-alone network element or in an integrated network element that incorporates additional functionality, such as a remote digital terminal or Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) Add/Drop Multiplex (ADM).