European Commission Directorate XIIIB, which falls within the DG XIII information industries and telecommunications Directorate General, has seen the erratic and sometimes non-existent penetration of the viewdata service across the Community – and has decided that the concept needs some promoting. At a very low-key press conference in Brussels last week, representatives of Luxemburg-based DG XIIIB – whose main task, it was explained, is disseminating information about information technology – gave details of its ECHO plan, under which the Commission acts as a kind of central host service to the various national service providers. The main service offered by ECHO – European Commission Host Organisation – is somewhat uninspired. European users will be able to call up more than 150 pages of interesting information on EC programmes, databases, institutions and people. If this is hardly likely to prompt the masses to get connected in slow viewdata markets like Belgium, Eire and Denmark, one spin-off service within the project might just boost professional use. The Directorate wants to have local service providers and advertise their services in all markets in the Community, and is offering the ECHO service to get over the language and standards barriers. All services offered by host companies will be advertised in the relevant language on services such as Minitel in France, Prestel in the UK, the German Bildschirmtext service, and converted by ECHO into the standard used in that country, whether CEPT 1, 2, or 3 or all three. Initiated in Belgium in May, the ECHO service is now available in most of the member countries, apart from the Netherlands and the UK, where the systems are currently being modified.
