ATM is fast becoming the telco industry's preferred standard for the transmission of voice, data, and video services across its core networks, and ATM over VDSL is the preferred implementation method specified by the members of FSAN. Using ATM as the transport mechanism has the advantage of providing the following:

• guaranteed quality of service (QoS)
• multiple service classes support
• guaranteed bandwidth
• interconnects for different Internets and intranets
• interconnects for disparate systems
• interconnects for various media types such as wireless (terrestrial and satellite)
• extending the distance and interconnects without exceeding hops and dropping data
• integrated video and transmission control protocol (TCP)/Internet protocol (IP) applications
• multiple protocol support
• meeting future application requirements now

ATM standards are already well established, and VDSL standards are also well underway. The ANSI T1E1.4 and ETSI TM6 working groups, in cooperation with the VDSL Coalition and VDSL Alliance, have established recommended standards with contributions to the ITU in progress. It is expected that the ITU will adopt a VDSL standard by the end of 1999. Other standards that already exist or are emerging for the delivery format of services include MPEG audio and video, digital video disk (DVD), digital video broadcast (DVB), digital broadcast satellite (DBS), and HDTV, to name a few. Table 2 lists the organizations developing or contributing to various standards that define the full-service access network of the new millennium.

ANSI	ETSI	ITU
DAVIC	ISO/IEC	TIA
FSAN	VDSL Coalition	VDSL Alliance
ADSL Forum	ATM Forum	T1E1

Table 2. Relevant Standards Bodies and Working Groups