The origins, development and future of Euronet Available to Purchase

Traces the background to setting up EURONET following a resolution passed by the Council of Ministers of the European Communities on the coordination of Scientific and Technical Information (STID) activities. The committee for this (CIDST) was set up to implement the resolution. A three‐year action plan was developed by CIDST and approved in 1975. A significant outcome of this has been the signing of two contracts one between the Commission and a consortium of the nine member PTTs, and one between that consortium and consultants based on Sesa Logica, for the implementation of EURONET. The network will have four packet‐switching exchanges (PSE) at Frankfurt, Paris, London and Rome and five concentrators or remote access facilities (RAF) at Brussels, Copenhagen, The Hague, Dublin and Luxembourg. The X 25 packet‐switching protocol will be used and host computers will be able to communicate at between 2.4Kbps and 9.6Kbps. A total of 96 data bases are to be connected to the network. Costs of setting up EURONET are expected to reach some FF24. 1m. Charges to users will be based on connect time and volume of data transferred. Other aspects discussed or listed are legal matters, user training and problems of multi‐lingual systems. The article ends with a summary of the second action plan covering 1978/80.