New standard helps multimedia get off the ground

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers began working on a transmission standard for multimedia networking almost a decade ago. Since the standard's recommendation in December 1994, it has taken little more than a year to capture the attention of manufacturers, vendors, resellers, systems integrators, and network users. The IEEE standard for multimedia in a local area network (LAN) is based on ISLAN-1GT, or isochronous Ethernet. Better known as isoEthernet, the standard incorporates an integrated services digital network phone system with LAN-based Ethernet for mixed data transmission. The IEEE standard, designated 802.9a for LANs and metropolitan area networks, is simply a physical layer standard-just like Ethernet 802.3/ISO 8802-3 and Token Ring 802.5-in that it defines the standard's media access control and physical layer