EUnet explained

EUnet was a very loose collaboration of individual European UNIX sites in the 1980s that evolved into the fully commercial entity EUnet International Ltd in 1996. It was sold to Qwest in 1998. EUnet played a decisive role in the adoption of TCP/IP in Europe beginning in 1988.

A separate company, EUnet GB, was founded in 1993 in the United Kingdom, which also played a role in the early commercial Internet in the UK.

History

The roots of EUnet, originally an abbreviation for European UNIX Network, go back to 1982 under the auspices of the EUUG (European UNIX Users Group), later EurOpen, and the first international UUCP connections.[1] [2] [3] [4]

FNET was the French branch of EUnet.[5]

Once there was a central European backbone node that was separate from the expensive telecom network, TCP/IP was adopted in place of store and forward. This enabled EUnet to connect with NSFNET in the US and with CERN’s TCP/IP connections.[6]

On January 1, 1990 EUnet began selling Internet access to non-academic customers in the Netherlands,[7] making them one of the first companies to sell Internet access to the general public. EUnet provided local service through a respective national EUnet business partner in many European countries.

In 1990 the Soviet IP-based network RELCOM, mostly operated by DEMOS-powered computers, was connected to the EUnet.[8]

EUnet GB Ltd was founded in the United Kingdom by a group of academics as a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) in 1993.[9] Jim Omand, the Chairman of EUnet GB, worked with EUnet Europe to form a pan-European Eunet in 1994.

In April 1998 the company together with nearly all of the national European business partners of EUnet was sold to Qwest Communications International,[10] which in turn later merged EUnet into the ill-fated joint-venture KPNQwest.[11] In 2000, it was estimated that KPNQwest was carrying more than 50% of European IP traffic.[12] Some of the ISPs operating under the name EUnet today can be traced back to the original EUnet.

Timeline

Legacy

Most national EUnet affiliates or subsidiaries predated other commercial Internet offerings in the respective countries by many years. Until the early 1990s, nearly every European country had a telecommunications monopoly with an incumbent national PTT. Commercial and non-commercial provision of telecommunications services was prohibited or, at least, took place in a legal "grey zone". During the same period, as part of an industrial political strategy to stop US domination of future network technology, the European Community embarked on efforts to promote OSI protocols, founding for example RARE and associated national "research" network operators (DFN, SURFnet, SWITCH to name a few). During this period, EUnet played an important and decisive role in the adoption of TCP/IP in Europe, beginning in 1988.[19]

People

The following people were involved in EUnet:

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Breaking Rules to Break Ground in Global Internet's Earliest Days Internet Hall of Fame. www.internethalloffame.org. 10 December 2016 . 2020-04-03.
  2. Web site: Teus Hagen Internet Hall of Fame. internethalloffame.org. 2020-02-14.
  3. Hauben . Michael . Hauben . Ronda . 1998-08-03 . On the Early Days of Usenet: The Roots of the Cooperative Online Culture. (Chapter 10) . First Monday . 3 . 8 . en . 10.5210/fm.v3i8.613 . 1396-0466 . free.
  4. Web site: 6th UK Network Operators' Forum Meeting Agenda. www.uknof.org.uk. 2020-02-12. See "15:00 Starting the Commercial Internet in the UK (Peter Houlder)". 2007-06-21. https://web.archive.org/web/20070621051719/http://www.uknof.org.uk/uknof6/. dead.
  5. Book: https://books.google.com/books?id=TzslDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA84. The Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories. 2017. Taylor & Francis. 978-1317607656. 84–89. The path to digital literacy and network culture in France (1980s to 1990s).
  6. Web site: Daniel Karrenberg Helped Bring the Internet to Europe; Now He Keeps It Running. Internet Hall of Fame. 30 August 2012 . 2020-04-03.
  7. Web site: Stichting NLnet Jaarverslag 1990. nlnet.nl.
  8. Web site: Как в СССР появился интернет и почему программисты не боялись цензуры . https://web.archive.org/web/20161026211000/http://weekend.rambler.ru/read/kak-v-sssr-poiavilsia-intierniet-i-pochiemu-proghrammisty-nie-boialis-tsienzury-2016-10-22/ . dead . 2016-10-26 . 2016-10-22 . . 2019-12-08 . Первое подключение СССР к интернету произошло 28 августа 1990 года, когда программисты с Овчинниковской набережной обменялись электронными письмами с коллегами из университета Хельсинки. Финляндия была выбрана не случайно: после московской Олимпиады это была единственная страна, с которой сохранилась автоматическая телефонная связь. Вскоре «Релкому» был открыт доступ в общеевропейскую сеть, EUnet. 19 сентября от имени советских пользователей Unix Антонов зарегистрировал домен .su — так появился новый сегмент интернета..
  9. Book: Mansell . Robin . Inside the Communication Revolution: Evolving Patterns of Social and Technical Interaction . 2002 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-829656-0 . 208 . en.
  10. News: Qwest to Buy Internet Provider EUnet of Europe for $154 Million . 2023-04-11 . Wall Street Journal . 26 March 1998. en-US.
  11. Web site: KPN and Qwest Form $700 Million European Fiber Network Team . 2023-03-14 . www.fiberopticsonline.com.
  12. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/KPNQwest-hat-sein-Netz-abgeschaltet-Update-65635.html KPNQwest hat sein Netz abgeschaltet
  13. http://users.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave.Marshall/Internet/node16.html Cardiff University/Dave Marshall, History of the internet
  14. http://godfatherof.nl/kremvax.html The Kremvax Hoax
  15. Web site: CWI History: details . 2020-02-14 . CWI . en-gb.
  16. Web site: 9 September 2016 . Kees Neggers: Global Networking Requires Global Collaboration Internet Hall of Fame . 2020-04-03 . www.internethalloffame.org.
  17. Book: Mansell . Robin . Inside the Communication Revolution: Evolving Patterns of Social and Technical Interaction . 2002 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-829656-0 . 208 . en.
  18. Web site: 1996-11-04 . EUnet Announces Major Restructuring . https://web.archive.org/web/19961104082652/http://www.eu.net/press/press960510eui.html . 1996-11-04 . 2020-07-23.
  19. Fluckiger . Francois . February 2000 . The European Researchers' Network . La Recherche . 328.
  20. Web site: Daniel Karrenberg Internet Hall of Fame. internethalloffame.org. 2020-02-14.
  21. Web site: Houlder. Peter. January 19, 2007. Starting the Commercial Internet in the UK. 2020-02-12. 6th UK Network Operators' Forum. 2020-02-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20200213100236/https://www.uknof.org.uk/uknof6/Houlder-History.pdf. dead.

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