Manchester Host
Encyclopedia
The Manchester Host was an early example of a municipal networking project. Its aim was to foster social and economic development in Manchester
, England
by encouraging the use of on-line communications and information services by businesses, public sector and voluntary organisations.
The project was launched in 1991 by a partnership of Manchester City Council
, Manchester Polytechnic (later Manchester Metropolitan University
), and Poptel
. At its core was an email and database service, accessible locally via dial-up and via the international X.25
-network globally. The email service used equipment provided by German company GeoNet
. A free-text database was accessed by what we'd now call a 'search engine' provided by a company called Memex.
The project involved a number of parallel activities including the establishment of "Electronic Village Halls": drop-in centres where users could learn about the new online communications and information ("telematics
") technology; and the creation of the Manchester Community Information Network.
The Manchester Host has been cited as an important example of the use of technology for economic development.
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
by encouraging the use of on-line communications and information services by businesses, public sector and voluntary organisations.
The project was launched in 1991 by a partnership of Manchester City Council
Manchester City Council
Manchester City Council is the local government authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. It is composed of 96 councillors, three for each of the 32 electoral wards of Manchester. Currently the council is controlled by the Labour Party and is led by...
, Manchester Polytechnic (later Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Metropolitan University is a university in North West England. Its headquarters and central campus is in the city of Manchester, but there are outlying facilities in the county of Cheshire. It is the third largest university in the United Kingdom in terms of student numbers, behind the...
), and Poptel
Poptel
Poptel was a British internet and on-line services provider that was run by an employee cooperative from 1986 to 2002.In the 1980's Poptel offered on-line communications and information services to international NGOs, working in particular with the Interdoc group...
. At its core was an email and database service, accessible locally via dial-up and via the international X.25
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...
-network globally. The email service used equipment provided by German company GeoNet
GeoNet
GeoNet was an early international on-line services network built using microcomputers. Based on software developed in Germany by GeoNet Systems GmbH in the early 1980s and completed in the early 1990s, it was one of the first networks to offer a comprehensive on-line services platform, and was...
. A free-text database was accessed by what we'd now call a 'search engine' provided by a company called Memex.
The project involved a number of parallel activities including the establishment of "Electronic Village Halls": drop-in centres where users could learn about the new online communications and information ("telematics
Telematics
Telematics typically is any integrated use of telecommunications and informatics, also known as ICT...
") technology; and the creation of the Manchester Community Information Network.
The Manchester Host has been cited as an important example of the use of technology for economic development.