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Document summary:
- Title: Right Down the Tubes.
- Author: Mimi Fronczak Rogers (mimi_rogers@oasanet.cz)
- Source: http://www.teledotcom.com/0597/features/tdc0597nophone.side.html
- Copyright: © 1997 tele.com
- Date: 23 April 1997
Right Down the Tubes
About two dozen brass and black-steel tubes are lined up along one wall of a large, airy room. Indicator lights are mounted on the front of the tubes; at the end of each tube is a receptacle made of dark polished wood. Also below each tube is a separate hatch neatly labeled with an engraved and painted brass plaque. A red indicator light on one of the tubes turns on. A low-leve l hum gradually builds over several minutes to a high-pitched whir. It all ends with a dull plunk as a metal cylinder drops from the tube and into the basket. An operator retrieves the canister, reads the label that denotes its intended destination, then deposits it into one of the lower hatches. A green indicator light comes on, signifying that the canister is on its way to its final destination.
For about 25 businesses in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, m-commerce (that's "m" as in "mechanical") is still the quickest, safest, and cheapest way to get things done. In a matter of minutes, an important document can make its way from point A to point B on the potrubní postí, Prague's underground pneumatic tube network, at a cost of about 11 U.S. cents per transmission. The network, comprised of some 60 kilometers of underground tubes, has been in operation since the 1920s, when it was considered the state of the art for high- speed document transfer. Other ci tywide pneumatic networks have long since been shut down or retooled for other purposes, but the Prague network continues to handle about 9,000 transmissions per month (in its heyday in the 1960s and '70s, the system carried more than a million messages per month).
For businesses in Prague, the potrubní postí represents more than a nostalgia trip. Phone service in the Czech Republic has improved steadily since the breakup of the Soviet Union's Eastern bloc in the late 1980s, but it still isn't nearly as reliable or available as it is in the industrial West. For documents that contain sensitive information or official stamps (an important element of commerce in Czech society), the tube network is viewed by its customers as indispensable. Secrecy and security are the hallmarks of Prague's tube network. Jírí Hák, director of the potrubní postí, will not divulge the names of companies that use the network. The only way to hack into the network is to use a jackhammer--something that has yet to be tried, according to Hák.
The pneumatic network is owned and operated by SPT Telecom, the Czech national phone company. That ownership ultimately may prove to be the tube network's downfall: Telsource N.V., a Swiss-Dutch alliance that now owns about 27 percent of SPT Telecom, has said that all SPT operating divisions must turn a profit or face shutdown. Despite an increase in use in recent years, the potrubní postí now operates in the red.