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Everyone has received an envelope of coupons in the mail, offering everything from free pizzas to dry cleaner discounts. Behind these money-saving offers is a high-volume, high-speed network that pumps out billions of coupons every year. "Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, huge images are floated onto the network," says Alan Robson, Val-Pak director of IS. Val-Pak Direct Marketing Systems, a cooperative, direct mail advertising company based in Largo, Fla., has franchises across the U.S. and Canada. Churning out countless coupons requires two facilities in Largo-one for administration and one for production-which are linked by redundant T1s to a graphics facility in Las Vegas.
Val-Pak's network connects 750 system components...