Barclays Bank Plc is replacing its leased line links with a worldwide X25-based network and the contract, worth an initial $4m goes to the BBN Communications UK Ltd wholly-owned subsidiary of Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The companies are calling the project the Worldwide Network, which will initially link sites in the US, continental Europe and its headquarters in the UK. Barclays is expected to be using the network within the next three to six months, with links to Hong Kong coming on before the end of the year and links with other parts of Asia, Australasia and Japan coming onstream in due course. Northern Telecom and Plessey were also bidding for the contract. The company is supplying its C/300 packet switching nodes, which handle up to 64 communications lines at up to 64Kbps, its C/10 packet assembler/disassemblers, PADs, for squirting non-X.25 traffic onto the network, its C/70 network management box and its network access system for security, which sends an ID, password and service request interface to the user to link Barclays’ main sites. BBN has set up a manufacturing plant in Livingston in Scotland, where it will be manufacturing its entire range of products for the UK and European markets by the end of the year.