The British Steel Corporation-integrated digital network

The British Steel Corporation (BSC) has been operating one of the most extensive private telecommunications systems in the UK, for the past ten years. This system gives BSC considerable cost savings, as well as offering significant functional, performance and security advantages. This system is known as COTEN (Corporate Telecommunications Network). The heart of the BSC system is the COTEN transmission network shown. This is a high capacity, modern, digital network that links the main centres of Corporate activity. This system can support the transmission of all types of information (data, speech, text, graphics) via three subordinate telecommunications services: a private COTEN data network linking four large IBM mainframe installations (at Aldwarke, Port Talbot, Teesside and Corby); a private COTEN speech network offering desk-to-desk dialling throughout most of the Corporation; and a COTEN terminal connection service linking remote terminal systems to their host IBM or ICL mainframes, or to minicomputers, on multiple sites