home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- 040.62 Europe commercial nets
- by Juha Heinanen <Juha.Heinanen@funet.fi>
-
- In this first report, an overview is given on present European commercial
- providers of Internet services.
-
- Traditionally commercial customers needing Internet services in Europe have
- turned to EUnet, which is a not-for-profit network related to EurOpen
- association. The branch of EUNET offering IP level services is called
- InterEUnet and currently it has points of presense in Austria, Belgium, France,
- Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, the Nordic Countries, Switzerland, and United
- Kingdom. Connectivity to the U.S is via Alternet.
-
- Another network providing European wide Internet services is InfoLAN. InfoLAN
- is owned by InfoNet which is a Los Angeles based international network
- operator. InfoLAN has IP access nodes in Belgium, France, Finland, Germany,
- Sweden, and United Kingdom and links from Europe to the U.S. Customers
- subscribe to InfoLAN usually because of their internal interconnection needs
- and Internet connectivity is offered as an added value to qualified users.
-
- Besides these international service provides, there exists national commercial
- internet networks in Finland and Sweden, where open competition has encouraged
- fulfilling of advanced user needs.
-
- In Finland, DataNet, which is run by the state owned telecom company, and
- LANLINK, which is managed by a consortium of local telecom companies, offer LAN
- interconnectivity supporting (among others) the TCP/IP protocol suite.
- Qualified DataNet customers can get Internet Access either via NORDUnet or via
- DataNet's InfoLAN connection.
-
- In Sweden, there exists similarly two competing IP providers: SWIPNET, which is
- an IP service of a privately owned telecom operator Tele2, and TIPNET, which is
- run by the state owned PTT. Both of these networks can currently both closed
- and open IP connectivity and Internet access to qualified customers via
- NORDUnet.
-