Iberpac (or Red UNO) was the Spanish

packet switched In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into short messages in fixed format, i.e. '' packets,'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets consist of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used b ...

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 ...

public data network A public data network (PDN) is a network established and operated by a telecommunications administration, or a recognized private operating agency, for the specific purpose of providing data transmission services for the public. The first public ...

. It was operated by Telefónica España, the incumbent Spanish telecommunications operator. Iberpac lents its name to Iberpac Plus and Iberpac Básico, the latest X.25 services in Spain.

History

Red Especial de Transmisión de Datos

Iberpac evolved from the Spanish ''Red Especial de Transmisión de Datos'' (RETD), the world's first

. Created in 1971, RETD was based on general-purpose Univac 418 III computers. The original ''Red Secundaria de Alto Nivel'' (RSAN) protocols for RETD were custom-developed by Telefónica (then CTNE) under

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the tec ...

design principles.

Project TESYS

By 1978, project TESYS (Telefónica, SECOINSA, SITRE) started the development of specific-purpose switching nodes. Some of the design principles of TESYS nodes were advanced for their time ( multithreading,

token passing On a local area network, token passing is a channel access method where a packet called a ''token'' is passed between nodes to authorize that node to communicate. In contrast to polling access methods, there is no pre-defined "master" node. The mos ...

protocols). In contrast, the large user base with terminals based on legacy RSAN protocols slowed the adoption of

, TESYS product development and support were targeted to CTNE only (thus precluding the spread of TESYS to international markets) and data lines in Spain became slow for their time (only 2% lines above 1200 bit/s in Spain in 1982, compare 89% in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

Iberpac and Red UNO X.25

Renamed as IBERPAC, the network evolved to X.25 in the 1980s, and it was renamed again as 'Red UNO' in the 1990s. Bank branches and financial services conformed the main user base. IBERPAC enabled new

videotex Videotex (or interactive videotex) was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information (usually pages of text) to a user in computer-like format, typi ...

and

teletext Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipped television sets. Teletext sends data in the broadcast signal, hidden in the invisible vertical blanking interval area at the to ...

services, although the adoption lagged far behind the popularity of similar services in other countries, such as the French

Minitel The Minitel, officially known as TELETEL, was an interactive videotex online service accessible through telephone lines. It was the world's first and most successful mass-market online service prior to the World Wide Web. It was developed in Ces ...

. Services based on legacy RSAN protocols were definitely scrapped in 1996.

Use

Until December 31, 2015, Red UNO supported two legacy X.25 services: flat-rate Iberpac Plus and pay-per-use Iberpac Básico. Iberpac services were targeted to corporate customers with specific reliability demands.

References

{{reflist * Jorge Infante
El desarrollo de la red pública de datos en España
''Revista BIT del Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación'', nº 136, 2002. (In Spanish)

External links

Wide area networks X.25