The roots of EUnet go back to 1982 and the first international UUCP

UUCP

UUCP is an abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers. Specifically, a command named uucp is one of the programs in the suite; it...

 connections. From a very loose collaboration of individual sites under the auspices of the EUUG (European UNIX Users Group) (later EurOpen), it evolved to the fully commercial entity EUnet International Ltd.

In April 1998 the company was sold to Qwest

Qwest

Qwest Communications International, Inc. was a large United States telecommunications carrier. Qwest provided local service in 14 western U.S. states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.On April...

 Communications International, which in turn later merged EUnet in to the illfated KPNQwest

KPNQwest

KPNQwest was a telecommunications company equally owned by the Dutch national telecom operator KPN and Qwest Communications International Inc., the Internet communications company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado....

. Some of the ISPs operating under the name EUnet today can be traced back to the original EUnet, some not.

Most national EUnet affiliate or subsidiaries predated other commercial Internet offerings in the respective countries by many years.

To completely understand the importance and history of EUnet, it is important to realize that till the early 1990s nearly every European country had a telecommunications monopoly with an incumbent national PTT and that 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 EC embarked on efforts to promote OSI

OSI

- General :* OSI Pharmaceuticals, an American pharmaceutical company* OSI Restaurant Partners, the restaurant and entertainment group that includes Outback Steakhouse...

 protocols, founding for example RARE and associated national "research" network operators (DFN, SURFnet

SURFnet

SURFnet is both the name for the organisation that develops, implements and maintains the national research and education network of the Netherlands as well as the network it operates. As one of the first networks linked to the Internet outside the USA the organisation has taken the lead in the...

, SWITCH

Switch

In electronics, a switch is an electrical component that can break an electrical circuit, interrupting the current or diverting it from one conductor to another....

 to name a few).

Timeline

1982 UUCP links established between 4 countries (UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden)

1984 kremvax

Kremvax

Kremvax was originally a fictitious Usenet site at the Kremlin, named like the then large number of Usenet VAXen with names of the form foovax. Kremvax was announced on April 1, 1984 in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. The posting was actually forged by...

 April Fools Joke

1988 First IP links

1990 First offerings for "all comers"

1996 EUnet International formed by share swaps with seven of the national organisations

1998 Sale to Qwest

Qwest

Qwest Communications International, Inc. was a large United States telecommunications carrier. Qwest provided local service in 14 western U.S. states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.On April...

 for $154.4 mio

People

• Teus Hagen
• Daniel Karrenberg
• Piet Beertema
  Piet Beertema
  Piet Beertema is a Dutch Internet pioneer. On November 17, 1988 at 14:28 hours, he linked the Netherlands as the second country to NSFnet, a precursor to the Internet...
  
  
• Peter Collinson
• Keld Simonsen
• Björn Eriksen
• Julf Helsingius
• Glenn Kowack
• Luc De Vos

External links

• LucDeVos.com
• Godfatherof.nl, Piet Beertema
• LivingInternet.com, Living Internet Article
• CERN.ch, CERN Internet History