It was in 1983 that I got my first taste of computer networking. I was working as an analyst/programmer at the Aughinish Alumina plant on the Shannon Estuary. We had a number of management and financial systems that used overnight ‘batch’ processing to update the day’s work across the plant and to have everything ready for the next morning. Ensuring these updates ran to their conclusion each night was a critical task. Many evenings I took home an acoustic coupler and a visual display unit (i.e. a computer terminal) to log in at night and check progress with the updates. The coupler was a device that connected to my telephone handset and allowed me to connect the terminal to the computer system at work. It ran at a speed of 300 baud (really slow!) but was well adequate to allow me check progress on the batch work and redirect, if necessary, from my home in Limerick City, 20 miles from the office. I was sold on the whole connectivity concept.
In 1986 I joined Shannon Development as management information systems (MIS) manager. Shannon Development was a semi-state company responsible for the economic development of the Shannon region comprising counties Clare, Limerick, North Kerry, North Tipperary and South-West Offaly. The company was like a mini IDA and Bord Fáilte rolled into one with a special focus also at Shannon Airport. Management in Shannon Development believed that it needed a strong and modern computer system to be successful in attracting new technology businesses, either overseas or Irish start-ups, to set up in the Shannon region.
Therefore, between 1986 and 1990 we implemented a major computerisation agenda in the head office in Shannon Town and various local offices around the region. We implemented MIS systems and ‘office automation’ systems which included electronic mail (email). In those early days our networking was mostly to do with our internal systems built on a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) Vax platform using leased lines, terminal servers, data routers etc. to link all the company offices. We had some staff based overseas who connected in to Shannon using dial-up modems.
John O’Flaherty (MAC), David Hogan & John King of Shannon Development reviewing regional telecommunications connectivity in the early 1990s. (Photo courtesy of The Shannon Group.)
We worked closely with the University of Limerick (UL), especially in planning technology projects for one of the industrial development zones at Plassey Park. Located beside UL, this became the National Technological Park (NTP), Plassey. I worked very closely during the years 1989 to 1995 with Gordon Young, the IT manager at UL, Pat Kelly, the head of library services and IT at UL, and Martina Flynn, head of the business technology training service at UL. Gordon was our technical ‘genius’ on the whole networking area and was centrally involved in the development of HEANET, the computer network that connected the 3rd level colleges to each other. Another key partner for us was John O’Flaherty, the MD of the Microelectronics Application Centre (MAC), based at UL.
Working with Gordon Young, we introduced a connection from our office systems menu in Shannon to the electronic library catalogue at UL. This allowed our staff officers carry out a range of online searches to assist with ongoing regional development projects. This was the first networking connection to a 3rd party service that was a made available to our staff at their own desks. We also worked with John O’Flaherty at the time to promote the Minitel service in the region, a project supported by the EEC STAR programme. During the early to mid 1990s we ran demonstrations on an ongoing basis (with partners) of ‘new’ technologies such as ISDN, videoconferencing and broadband networking.
In 1990 we had connected our company email to the national X.25 network and also, using PMDF software, to email gateways managed by Michael Nowlan at TCD. This allowed our staff to connect with a vastly increasing ‘network of contacts’ and paved the way for much greater connectivity. Mind you, a share of time was spent figuring out why some email gateways worked and others not so well – all part of the fun, but had to be resolved as we were promoting these networks as important business services. It wasn’t unusual in those days to ring your email recipient to check the email had come through especially if going through a new gateway.
Message from Michael Nowlan to me in March 1993 on email gateway problems!
We were examining ways of connecting regional businesses to the emerging internet to give access to new opportunities. We teamed up with Michael Nowlan and Cormac Callanan at IEunet to establish a regional connection to the internet for businesses. Cormac and I addressed a very well attended business marketing seminar in the Castletroy Park hotel in Limerick in 1994 explaining the internet, how it worked and the opportunities it provided. I explained we were setting up a local point-of-presence in Limerick to provide commercial connectivity to the internet, describing it as being like a ‘slip road’ to the information super highway. A very cheesy connection to the Al Gore rhetoric of the time!
Excerpt from Irish Examiner report, 11th Oct 1994. (Courtesy Irish Examiner newspaper.)
Later in 1994 we set up Shannon Internet Services, a joint venture between IEunet and Shannon Development. This service enabled companies to have local-call access to a bank of modems in Limerick, linked by leased line to IEunet’s hub in Dublin. The Mid-West was online to the internet with a local point-of-presence!
Upwards of 50 customers joined Shannon Internet Services during the early months of its operations. They were a mix of small companies already trading in a technical sector, primary and secondary schools, subsidiaries connecting to parent companies overseas, companies connecting to explore new business opportunities, and some private individuals. The main services being used were promoting and retrieving product catalogues, general marketing type services, accessing databases, accessing software upgrades (so called ‘patches’), electronic mail and file transfers.
Some of the UL attendees at the Castletroy Park Hotel event in September 1994 got together and set up a new internet services company, W3 Services. We worked closely with them and established Commerce Ireland, an early version of a web-based business portal that enabled local companies to have marketing material carried on the web. We also worked with the telecoms operators (telcos) Telecom Eireann, Esat, Sprint, MCI and Stentor, who were looking for opportunities to connect new business customers. We set up arrangements with these telcos to enable shared access to underground ducting in business parks around the region, as much for practical reasons as for technology reasons.
Patricia Byrne CEO NTP, Paul Sheane CEO Shannon Development, Denis O’Brien, CEO Esat, and John King of Shannon Development at the launch of Ireland’s first E-Park in 1998. (Photo courtesy of The Shannon Group.)
During the period 1989-1998 we worked on a series of EEC (now EU) funded projects to develop regional access and know-how on ‘telematics’ and the information society. John O’Flaherty at MAC was a genius in creating regional projects that would meet the transnational criteria of the European rules. He must also take the credit for the various project acronyms, e.g. – ENCATA – the European Network for the Advancement of Telematics in Urban and Rural Areas! There was a range of these types of project including the Minitel STAR initiative, ENCATA, and Shipp, a regional information society project. We also made submissions to the national debate on the development of the information society.
By the end of 1996 the pioneering phase of internet connectivity was finishing and the business of connecting to the internet was more and more the preserve of the bigger players, i.e. the major telecom companies. Soon enough after IEunet merged with Internet Services Ireland we wound up Shannon Internet Services leaving the customers with EUnet Ireland, IEunet’s successor. We concentrated on working with the telecom operators in rolling out their networks around the region. Key targets at this stage were broadband networks and fibre rings. In 1998 we signed an agreement with Esat Telecom to establish Ireland’s first E-Park at NTP.
Today I am working in family history / genealogy in Limerick, a sector that is being revolutionised by digitisation and online access to family history records.
Last edit: January 2016
© John King 2016