The commercial computer services operation set up two years ago by SITA, the airlines’ Society for International Transporters by Air, to drive their investment in facilities harder, has added the SNA Token Ring Access Service to its range of IBM Corp managed data network services. The service is said to support SNA Token Ring communications to the SITA Global Network and is aimed at international organisations. The service supports 4Mbps or 16Mbps Token Ring local network connections, typically using leased lines to customer premises equipment and is based on both the standard service, offering network access speeds of 64Kbps, and a higher throughput service providing access speeds up to 256Kbps, says the Air Group. Higher network access speeds of up to 1.5Mbps and 2Mbps are planned by December. The SNA Token Ring Access service currently supports Host Access, which is said to enable companies with large numbers of front end processor host connections to a wide-area network to consolidate these to a single or multiple Token Ring PU4 connection to support a number of remote sites. Also due is SNA Token Ring Terminal Access, enabling 3270 and 5250 terminals, personal computers and cluster controllers to link with SITA’s network via a Token Ring connection. The service is globally available; no prices were given.
