Arizona Telemedicine Program
Network Description

The Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) network is primarily devoted to improving access to specialized medical care throughout the State of Arizona through the use of telemedicine technologies such as digital imaging and real-time video conferencing.  The network backbone is comprised of DS3 (45Mbps) private line telecommunications circuits that link network access points in Tucson, Phoenix, Flagstaff, Tuba City, and Window Rock, Arizona.  The network through its partnerships with the Navajo Area Indian Health Service (NAIHS) and the Phoenix Area Indian Health Service (PAIHS) also extends to IHS facilities in New Mexico.  Member sites typically link into the network backbone utilizing T1 (1.5Mbps) or greater speed private line telecommunications circuits.  In addition, a growing number of organizations link into the network for non-real-time applications via virtual private networking (VPN) over the Internet.   There are approximately 65 sites directly connected to the ATP network and an additional ~85 locations are reachable through directly connected affiliate networks.   The ATP network also provides the ability for its member sites to connect to external organizations via gateways to the PSTN and the Internet.  Local area networks (LAN) at member facilities are typically 100 Mbps Ethernet networks.

            The ATP network backbone is based on the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) protocol.  The ATM protocol provides highly granular quality of service (QoS) characteristics which allow for prioritization of how different types of data are allowed to flow over the network.   Real-time video conferencing, especially for clinical applications, is assigned a higher priority than less time sensitive store and forward transmissions such as Teleradiology.  Internet Protocol (IP) has emerged as the dominant networking protocol over the past few years, and is heavily used by the ATP network as well.  IP data communications are layered on top of the ATM network and IP QoS techniques are employed in addition to the ATM QoS capabilities of the network.  In the future, as member organizations update their applications equipment, it is expected that all telemedicine network communications will be handled using IP data communications.  Accordingly, the ATM backbone could then be updated to an IP centric platform that will more efficiently handle the IP data communications.

Also see Arizona Telemedicine Program Network Services.

Detailed network map available in Adobe PDF format

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Updated:  May 3, 2006