Denver-based regional phone company US West Inc has gone to Bridgewater, New Jersey manufacturer Integrated Network Corp for a high speed data transmission system to cover the six mountain states that it serves. US West will use Integrated’s Universal Switched Data Capability to offer customers its own SwitchNet 56 data service for inter- and intra-state data traffic. The system enables telephone companies to offer simultaneous switched 56Kbps data and 19.2Kbps voice+data services almost anywhere in the public switched telephone network. It can be implemented using existing transmission and loop access networks and switching systems including AT&T’s Number 5ESS and Northern Telecom’s DMS 100. Integrated Network Corp was formed in March 1985 by former Bell Laboratories and AT&T executives to design systems and offer services using the existing base of switching and transmission equipment.
US West has also signed a three-year contract with Fujitsu America Inc to distribute the Japanese company’s Integrated Services Digital Networking terminal to corporate customers. Claimed to be one of the industry’s first agreements for the commercial distribution of ISDN desktop terminals, the contract is seen by US West as a necessary precursor to corporate acceptance of the evolving global standard. Under the pact, US West Information Systems will sell the complete Fujitsu line of ISDN terminals including digital telephone sets and ISDN terminal adaptors. The agreement is expected to extend to the Image Station, which integrates graphic as well as speech and data processing, for which end-user shipments are planned for late 1988. Fujitsu America was a partner in the US West multi location ISDN field trial conducted in Phoenix, Arizona and the former Mountain Bell arm of US West used ISDN technology to standardise and upgrade the Centrex features of its own voice telephone network.
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