Data communications: Local data nets: Untying the office knot: Establishing standards for accessing local data networks may facilitate intra-office communications

Business communications are headed for spectacular expansion in this decade as companies draw up plans to convert their headquarters into "electronic offices." Already, some of the larger manufacturers of equipment for these offices are offering communications networks that allow word processors, intelligent terminals, magnetic disk units, minicomputers, and the like to communicate with one another via software protocols. When VLSI becomes predominant, the way will be clear for inexpensive high-bandwidth communications between office equipment in a limited area. Each office building will then become a local data communications network. The electronic office will have come of age. The ultimate goal is to efficiently link the local networks with remote inter-city networks (Fig. 1).