Underlining its confidence that, by offering services that the customer wants, it can squeeze money out of the worldwide telex market for the next 20 years, Mercury Communications Ltd Telex Services division, which in a few years has captured over 40% of the UK outbound telex traffic, has launched a new service that brings together Mercury’s X25-based 7125 telex facility and a new software interface from Amersham, Buckinghamshire-based developer Sipher Designs Ltd. John Mittens, general manager of Telex Services, argues that despite popular belief telex is by no means on its last legs, and in fact certain areas of the telex market are experiencing growth: multinationals that need to communicate with countries with outdated telecommunications systems, such as those in Eastern Europe, are finding that there is still no real alternative to telex, and many messages for which immediate and legally binding acknowledgements are required are still best handled by telex. The new service is designed to enable access between multi-user computer terminals and the international telex network through a single X25 9,600bps dedicated circuit. Because access through to the computer is direct, a message switch is not required, and with a traffic capacity equivalent to 46 telex channels, the single link means that most customers will only need one telex line. Each terminal or mailbox is allocated one of a maximum 10,000 telex numbers per connection, and a direct dial inwards feature enables calls to go directly to the appropriate terminal. Sipher’s 80386-based Xport interface system comprises a 60Mb fixed disk, monitor, keyboard and parallel printer. Effectively, it acts as a private exchange for incoming and outgoing telex messages and provides a link between the mainframe and the 7125 service. According to Sipher’s marketing director Jim Ure, a least-cost routing facility can save an intensive telex-user up to UKP250,000 a year. Installation of the 7125 service is handled by Mercury, and customers can choose either to use Sipher’s Xport or modify their existing software. The initial connection fee is UKP5,000, and the total cost for all the hardware and Xport is around UKP26,000.
