Telefonica de Espana SA is to put its Mensatex electronic mail service on the market within two months if it comes up to standard in its present test stage. Mensatex has been completely developed in-house by the minority state-owned Spanish telecommunications operator, which will also control the first test period, but the second stage of testing will involve computer companies such as IBM and DEC. Telefonica subsidiary TSI will market the service and decide on subscription tariffs during the test phase. With the new system, companies will have access via a synchronised terminal to the Telefonica Exchange Network, and it will offer subscribers the following three options: mailbox rental with tariffs dependent on 12 different parameters including type of connection, connection time, monthly subscrip-tion, and type of message sent; service subscription with normal electronic mail tariffs for those who have their own electronic mail equipment; and Simple Message Transmission counting only the quota of connection, the transmission time and the messages sent. All electronic mail in Spain is based on the communications software developed by British Telecommunications Plc’s Dialcom unit to run on Prime Computer Inc 50 Series minis, and conforms to the X400 message handling protocol standard which caters for international transmission networks.
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