EIRPAC is

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

's packet switched

X.25 X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for Packet switched network, packet-switched data communication in wide area network, wide area networks (WAN). It was originally defined by the CCITT, International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Co ...

data network. It replaced Euronet in 1984. Eirpac uses the DNIC 2724.

HEAnet HEAnet is the national education and research network of Ireland. HEAnet's e-infrastructure services support approximately 210,000 students and staff (third-level) in Ireland, and approximately 800,000 students and staff (first and second-lev ...

was first in operation via X.25 4.8Kb Eirpac connections back in 1985. By 1991 most Universities in Ireland used 64k Eirpac

VPN Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not c ...

connections. Today Eirpac is owned and operated by

Eircom Eircom Limited, trading as Eir ( ; stylised eir), is a large fixed, mobile and broadband telecommunications company in Ireland. The company, which is currently incorporated in Jersey, traces its origins to Ireland's former state-owned monopol ...

but does not accept new applications for Eirpac: no reference is made on the products-offering on their websiteReference to the service for existing customer is Eirco
Pricelist
checked 4 April 2011 They began the process of migrating existing customers using more capable forms of telecommunications back in late April 2004. In 2001 Eirpac had approximately 5,000 customers dialing in daily via

switched virtual circuits A virtual circuit (VC) is a means of transporting data over a data network, based on packet switching and in which a connection is first established across the network between two endpoints. The network, rather than having a fixed data rate reser ...

although those numbers have been declining rapidly. Eirpac is still an important element for data transfer in Ireland with numerous banks (

automatic teller machines An automated teller machine (ATM) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, funds transfers, balance inquiries or account ...

), telecoms switches, pager systems and other networks that utilise

permanent virtual circuits A virtual circuit (VC) is a means of transporting data over a data network, based on packet switching and in which a connection is first established across the network between two endpoints. The network, rather than having a fixed data rate reser ...

. Connecting to Eirpac can be done using a simple AT compatible modem. The dial in number is 1511 + baud rate. So for example to connect at 28,800 bit/s would be ATDT 15112880. The user would then have to authenticate with their Eirpac NUI. The NUI (Network User Identification) consists of a name and password provided by Eir.

Sources

External links

Official website
Computer networking Internet in Ireland {{network-stub