ICL Plc’s $19m contract from the Spanish government’s Secretaria General de Comunicaciones for a data network – represents healthy business for Northern Telecom Europe (CI No 1,620). Northern Telecom will supply its DPN-100 switches under a $6.8m subcontract. The four-year project to build a new integrated Official Communications network, RICO, has an estimated cost of $430m; when completed, it is expected to support more than 30,000 access ports. The order to Northern Telecom is for a 3,300-port DPN-100 backbone system. ICL, Northern Telecom and Telefonica Sistemas have signed a collaborative agreement to implement the network, to be based on more than 50 DPN-100 packet switches linking Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Leon, Seville and Valencia to the other provincial capitals. RICO will also support the transformation of the Spanish Post Office, Correos, as it evolves from a public utility into a commercially autonomous organisation, which plans a premium electronic mail service with urgent correspondence delivered in 45 minutes, and other government departments are expected to come onto the network too in the future.
