Special Interest Group for
Supporting International Collaborations in Hard to Network Parts of the World

The Internet2 Special Interest Group (SIG) for Supporting International Collaborations in Hard to Network Parts of the World held a meeting on 3 May 2005 at the Spring 2005 Internet2 Member Meeting.

Meeting Notes

Attendees

Warren Matthews (chair) - Georgia Institute of Technology
Jim Whitlock - University at Buffalo
Les Cottrell - SLAC
Greg Cole - GLORIAD
John Dyer - TERENA
Noncedo Vutula - Department of Science and Technology, South Africa
Duncan Martin - TENET
Anil Srivastava - World Bank
Neil James - University of Otago, New Zealand
Don Riley - University of Maryland
Jeff Verrant - Ciena
Jim Williams - Indiana University
Sanggyun Kim - Advanced Network Forum, Korea
Tom Lynch - Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Ted Hanss - University of Michigan
Florencio Utreras - CLARA
Heather Boyles - Internet2
Steve Smith - University of Alaska
Seo Bo-Hyun - Korea Information Strategy Development Institute
Bob Dixon - Ohio State University
Gurcharan S. Khanna - Dartmouth College
Brent Sweeny - Indiana University
Bill Chang - NSF
Jun Matsukata - National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Dany Vandromme - RENATER
Andrew Howard - AARNet
Dean Nairn - University of Delaware
Alejandro Bermudez
Anissa Benserria
Ben Chinowsky (scribe) - Internet2

Discussion

Warren Matthews opened the meeting with an introduction to the group, which is informally known as the Extending the Reach SIG (EtR-SIG). EtR-SIG has existed as a BoF for a few years, and there is a sense that now is the time to become a more formal organization. EtR-SIG's focus is on involving the end users at hard-to-reach places, not on high performance.

Matthews also gave the first of three presentations, presenting data from Arshad Ali on R&E networking in Pakistan. Telecommunications in Pakistan was de-monopolized in December 2002, and R&E networking is now expanding rapidly. The Pakistan Educational Research Network (http://www.pern.edu.pk/) supports research at major universities. Pakistan is participating in the South East Asia - Middle East - West Europe 4 submarine cable project (SEA-ME-WE 4; http://www.seamewe4.com/) to replace the outage-prone SEA-ME-WE 3 cable on which the country currently depends. SIG participants also noted that Pakistan has also joined APAN, and will be participating in the Megaconference for the first time this year.

Les Cottrell presented work on "quantifying the digital divide." He noted that many universities in the developing world have less connectivity than homes in the developed world. Much traffic from one developing country to another passes through the developed world; this approximately doubles international link traffic. There is a wealth of detail in Cottrell's slides; see http://www.internet2.edu/presentations/spring05/20050503-Digital-Cottrell.ppt.

Greg Cole offered lessons from the history of the Global Ring Network for Advanced Applications Development (GLORIAD; http://www.gloriad.org/). GLORIAD has roots in the NSF Civic Networking Program (CNP) which offered support to Russian R&E in the mid-90s. CNP required academics to have partners from local government, business, and health sectors in order to get funding. Cole stressed that this was "exactly the right way to approach this" because it led to a much broader range of involvement, which ultimately benefitted the scientists as well as the broader community in Russia. Cole also noted that friendships created here and in the related Friends & Partners Program still serve GLORIAD today.

Finally the group discussed next steps for EtR-SIG.

• Matthews announced that there's a prize in the offing for a better name for the group. There were several suggestions, including "Connectivity to Less Developed Regions SIG" and "Underserved Regions SIG". There was general agreement that the term "digital divide" has unwanted connotations and should not be part of the name.
• The SIG also needs a charter. A focus on Africa has been suggested, but it was noted that Latin America is almost as poorly served. It was suggested that the charter include an explicit focus on using the Internet to do something about the extremes of suffering in these regions, and more specifically on "public-benefit applications" and last-mile issues around them, e.g. extending networking to rural health clinics.
• One possible project would be to compile a comprehensive list of inadequately-served research efforts on the one hand and networking projects that might be able to help them on the other. http://www.terena.nl/compendium/ was cited as a resource here.
• Other resources noted were the Development Gateway Foundation (http://www.developmentgateway.org/) and the American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC; http://www.adec.edu/). Bob Dixon (dixon.8@osu.edu) noted that ADEC is working with Tachyon Networks, which has new leadership and wants to expand in the developing world; they are looking for showcase apps, the definition of which includes broad benefit.
• The EtR-SIG web site is http://international.internet2.edu/intl_connect/hardtonetwork.html; all are encouraged to join the mailing list. A monthly conference call or videoconference has also been proposed, and the World Bank has offered the use of its videoconferencing facilities.