Poland was an unlikely pioneer of packet-switched networks, using equally unlikely Singer Co – later ICL Plc – System Tens as packet switches, and now Sprint Corp, Kansas City, Missouri has announced a contract with PKP, the Polish State Railways, to install a nationwide packet network across Poland. Worth more than $9m over the next two years, the agreement will see Sprint supplying a 300-node data network as part of a World Bank project to upgrade the railway’s infrastructure. Sprint Telenet TP4900 data communications switches (also used throughout the SprintNet global X25 and Frame Relay networks) will be installed in 80 cities throughout Poland, with major network switching centres in Warsaw, Cracow, Gdansk, Szsczecin, Wroclaw, Poznan, Katowice, Bydgoszcz and Lublin. Railway headquarters in Warsaw will monitor network performance using Sprint’s TP5800 network management system. More than 200 TP8000 access and switching nodes will provide remote office with network access. Value-added systems to be incorporated into the network include Sprint’s Telemail electronic mail system, Sprint Electronic Data Interchange, and Global SprintFax systems. The first application to be implemented is a nationwide ticketing and passenger reservation system, while a freight management information system will subsequently be installed.
