The introduction of the HDMP-1000 Gigabit Rate Transmit/Receive (GLINK) Chip Set by Hewlett-Packard has provided a hardware device capable of matching SONET STS-3c up to nearly STS-24c rates over either coaxial cable or optical fiber. The capability enables high speed local communication over a low cost medium, and lends itself well to use as both the physical and the data link layers for ATM in a local (few hundred feet) environment. This paper analyzes the capabilities of the GLINK chip set in terms of link length and data rate trade-offs, and in terms of its usefulness as a physical and DLL for local ATM.