Internet, the company formed by Nippon Telegraph & Telephone to operate its value-added network service in May last year, has hitherto supported just one communications architecture, Data Communications Network Architecture, DCNA, which the phone company has spent three years trying to harmonise with IBM’s SNA. But the company is now additionally supporting a new protocol developed in conjunction with Fujitsu, Hitachi and NEC – who are also investing in Internet, which has been conceived to enable users of all the major Japanese mainframe types to exchange data. Minicomputers from each of the three manufacturers are used as protocol conversion gateways. IBM mainframes will also be supported through a tie-up with another NTT company, Nippon Information & Communications, for which a Series 1 mini will be used as a gateway.
