VirtuHalls© is one of the deployment phases of the Infocities project (1997-2006). The subvention for the feasibility phase of Infocities (1996-1999) was granted on the basis of a 300 MEURO 10 year project. It was understood that the project partners would undertake deployment and business phases in year 3 and following. By the end of 1998 Infocities counted 1.000.000 real reported citizens using the services, although "only" 160.000 were foreseen in the original proposal. Moreover, 30.000 businesses in the 8 core cities (Den Haag, Nice, Liège, Manchester, Antwerp, Bologna, Helsinki and Barcelona) were counted.

In 1998 we based an Infocities-2 proposal (20 cities and 35+ industrial partners) on business plans which would only be ready by end 1998. Discussions with the Commission made clear to us that Infocities is a flagship project, and it would be necessary to provide continuity to the project after 1999. A new proposal would be the opportunity. The evaluators simply concluded in July 1998 that the business plans were too meagre at that time, which was quite obvious.

In the analysis of these results, again in discussion with the Commission we split up the consortium in smaller parts. Each small consortium would remain part of the Infocities family, but deploy and plan business in its own time and responsibility. This approach can already be found in the business plans, which were the output of the feasibility phase of Infocities, and the input for VirtuHalls©. Some consortia deploy at their own expense, or better to say with non-European-Commission funding. Other consortia went in a different timing and reached the deployment stage a bit later than the others.

One consortium deploys as VirtuHalls© under TEN Telecom 1999. Three core cities from Infocities-1 plus the new member Hamburg, who also joined the 1998 proposal, and is co-author of the Infocities business plan (output of the feasibility phase). Because of some misunderstanding, the evaluators charged the VirtuHalls© consortium for all subventions of the large Infocities group. Much to the regret of us all, notably the Hamburg consortium, who did not take part in Infocities 1. As a result a large investment is expected with only 5% funding. We settled all arguments about this in the contract drafting stage (end 1999). It meant, however, that the reporting in VirtuHalls© is more or less restricted to "proof of investment". In the original proposal we had much higher ambitions, but these were impossible under the restricted budget.

Under subsequent TEN Telecom calls we will enter Infocities-family proposals, since we see it as a contractual (basis of original Infocities contract) obligation to bring as many Infocities partners to European deployment as possible.