the evolution of packet switching, lawrence g. roberts, 1978.

Organized in 1971 and originally known as the COST 11 Project and later as the European Informatics Network (EIN) is a multination-funded European research network. The project director is Derek Barber of NPL, one of the original investigators of packet switching in the U.K. Given freedom from the red tape of multinational funding, this project would have been one of the earliest pace-setters in packet networks in the world. As it happened, however, EIN was not operational until 1976.