GEC Plessey Telecommunications Ltd is claiming a place in the Guinness Book of Records after its System X digital public switch registered 1.6m phone calls per hour in a demonstration in Beeston, Nottinghamshire. System X broke the world record for Busy Call Hour Attempts, BCHA, processed, using a six cluster system. The company hopes that System X’s capacity will enable it to meet PTT demands for services such as Centrex, facilities such as British Telecommunications Plc’s Star Services, voice processing and personal numbers, all of which contain software that uses up extra processing power. At the demonstration, GPT also reaffirmed its intention to converge System X with its Digital Central Office, DCO, system in an attempt to strengthen the company’s presence in North America. GEC Plessey claims to be the third largest supplier of digital phone lines in the US market by a very large margin, though Siemens AG is pressing for this position (CI No 1,205). GPT also claims that British Tele com’s decision to take a Northern Telecom Inc DMS-300 SuperNode for an international gateway, in preference to System X, is not the start of a long term trend, despite GPT’s claims that System X is suitable for international gateway requirements. It is looking for most of System X’s future international growth in the tough European PTT market and it claims to have around 5.1m UK lines installed on System X exchanges, and total worldwide sales of around UKP2,000m.
