The EURONET Telecommunications and Information Network

In 1971 the Council of the European Economic Community agreed in principle to the planning of a computer network to enable data terminals located in any of the member countries to gain on-line access to scientific, technical and socio-economic information held on data bases at specific locations. In 1974 the Commission issued a three-year action plan which included the establishment of a computer network which became known as EURONET. More recently the term EURONET has become associated with the Telecommunications Network alone and, for aspects concerning the terminals and the data bases, the name DIANE¿Direct Information Access Network EUROPE¿has been adopted. The EEC EURONET organization is described in the paper and also the involvement of the CEPT (Conference of European Postal and Telecommunications Administrations) and of the individual Administrations. The basic specification, and the network configuration to meet it, are given together with those factors affecting the choice of packet-switching. Following a description of the hardware and software to be used, including alignment with CCITT (International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee) Recommendations, an assessment is made of the likely future enhancement of EURONET, after its planned opening in 1979, and of the work undertaken by the Commission to standardize data base access and retrieval procedures.