Japan tests its model communications system: Digital transmission, communications processing, and an innovative bit-based tariff will be studied in the nation's milestone Mitaka plant

A selected group of about 2000 telephone users, some in downtown Tokyo and some in Mitaka, a suburb of Tokyo, will soon be getting firsthand experience with what may turn out to be their country's communications system in the next century. The project is the Mitaka pilot plant, or Model System, as its creator, the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corp. (NTT) calls it. It is the largest single project ever undertaken by the NTT and is seen as a milestone in the development of its Information Network System (INS) - an all-digital blend of computer and telecommunications technologies.