2012.4/7.6/7.11

[by Natlia Bulashova, Dmitry Burkov, Alexey Platonov, Alexey Soldatov]

Russia: Snapshot of the Internet around 1990

At the end of 1991, the Russian Federation was recognized as the state-successor of the USSR in international legal relations. The period of 1990 - 2000 characterizes a radical and difficult change in the social economic situation, and may be considered as the crucial point for the country.

In the first half of the 90's (1990-1994), as limiting factors for the development of the telecommunication networks in the country were: (1) the existing general-purpose telephone system infrastructure (public telephone system) with low-technical characteristics; (2) the limited number of personal computers; (3) the monopoly position of the state telecommunication operator, ROSTELECOM which owned almost all terrestrial inter-regional telephone channels [Rostelecom 2012], and (4) restrictions for the delivery of equipment from abroad by Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls(COCOM). Note that the restrictions were canceled after the COCOM organization was closed down in 1994.

In spite of all complexity in 1990's, the RELCOM company has a specific place in the Russian Internet history, as the company that started the development of Internet in Russia. In the beginning of 1990 the number of personal computers in use was rising; the Russian market economy was rapidly developing with the need timely to have economic, financial, technical and other information, that led to further demand for the services provided by computer networks. That had evoked the dynamic extension of the RELCOM network on the former Soviet Union territory. In some years in 1990's the annual growth of the company exceeded 200% ~ 300%. By 1993, the EUNET/RELCOM network provided a full packet of IP-services. [Sterba 1993]

The period of 1992-1994 in Russia was a time for a dynamic growth of an independent ISP companies. At that time a number of commercial networks had been created and were in operation: IASnet, Infocom, Interlink, Sovam Teleport, Sprint, FidoNet, GlasNet, ROSPAK, SOVAM TELEPORT (most of those were highly concentrated in Moscow and had a limit presence in other regions).

There was significant impact on the Russian Internet development from the Russians Science and Education networks such as RUNnet, RASnet (EmNet), FREEnet, RSSI, Radio-MSU/RUHEP, RELARN-IP, RBnet, regional networks of Ural and Siberia, etc.), as well as universities and research centers, which formed the initial telecommunication infrastructure and created market for Internet services in the major cities and regions.

In 1996-1999, the Internet service itself began to influence on the development of a telecommunication infrastructure in Russia.

The modern telecommunication infrastructure in Russia at that time was developed in three areas in parallel:

- Implementation of large-scale national projects (nationwide network backbone);

- Development and support of regional and interregional telecommunication projects

- Telecommunication activity of non-governmental organizations (commercial and non-commercial sectors)

The development of the national primary telecommunication infrastructure (nationwide network infrastructure) was carried out under the large-scale projects, where the most important were Rostelecom’s projects on constructing of the nationwide fiber-optic backbone systems.

An additional impetus for the Internet development in Russia had been the emergence of new companies, such as "Transtelecom" (1997) , JSV “Enifcom” (1997), "Gascom" (1992) as large national telecommunication operators with own nationwide infrastructure.

The period of 1994-1999 is characterized by the rapid/dynamic development of regional networks and spreading of the Internet across Russian Federation. In most cases, for the physical basis of the Russian Internet there were three Rostelecom’s inter-regional fiber-optic systems: "Moscow - Novorossiysk", "Moscow - Khabarovsk" and "Moscow - St Petersburg."

In the St Petersburg Region, the Internet was based mainly on the telecommunication system of the regional power energy company LENENERGO, and over RASCOM (regional telecommunication railway company) sometime later.

In the mid-1990s, the Russian Internet as a communication system had a multi-ray star topology with the center at Moscow, from which the channels diverged to other cities of Russia. Gradually at the ends of the "rays" (channels) there had been formed the regional centers of the Russian Internet, at the number of large cities as well as in some regions [Foundation 2012c].

The key role for science and education was played by a Interdepartmental State Program "Creation of national computer network for science and higher education" (1996-1999), in scale of which the Russian Backbone Network (RBNet) had been developed to integrate Regional and Specialized networks (such as RUNnet, RASnet, FREEnet, RSSI, Radio-MSU/RUHEP and etc.), to provide for the science, research and education community the main telecommunication infrastructure for a national and global cooperation.

The Interdepartmental State Program was coordinated with State Program "Universities of Russia" (Direction V) supported by Ministry of Education and with the Program "33 Regional Universities” supported by Open Society Institute of the International Soros Foundation. In the framework of these Programs the University Internet Centers has been opened, and connected to RBNet (with terrestrial channels) and RUNNet (with satellite channels).

During the ten years (1990 – 2000) the Russian Internet had exponentially grown. At the end of the 2000 more than 6.6 million users had access to Internet. [Foundation 2012f]

Bibliography

[IASNET 2012] IASnet, History, http://iasnet.ru/content.php?cid=1/, 2012. [in Russia]

[RU 2012] History of the Internet in Russia: People/Certificates, http://ru.arf.ru, 2012. [in Russian]

[Cook 1994] G. Cook. “Russia Is Successfully Building Its Own Internet ,” The Cook Report on Internet, vo1.2, no. 4, July 1994. http://www.cookreport.com/backissues/July94newsletter.pdf

[InfoUSA 2012] InfoUSA, Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, COCOM, http://infousa.state.gov/economy/trade/glossac.html#coord, 2012.

[Klyosov 2012] Antoly A. Klyosov, Twenty years later, or Internet began as the Soviet Union, http://www.pseudology.org/webmaster/Klyesov_Internet.htm, 2012. [in Russian]

[SUT 2012] St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications, Participation in the Establishment of EASC (1963-91), http://www.skri.sut.ru/hist02, 2012. [in Russia]

[Elutin 1995] Elutin A. et al, Computer Network Development for Science and Education in Russia, 1995. http://emag.iis.ru/arc/infosoc/emag.nsf/BPA/bc177065e3753c63c32575c9004042e9 [In Russia]

[FREEnet 2012] FREEnet, http://www.free.net, 2012.

[Foundation 2012a] The Foundation of Internet Development, Collection of interviews: Mendkovich Andrew S., http://www.fid.ru/projects/book/Mendkovich, 2012.

[Gazprom 2012] Gazprom Space Systems, http://www.gascom.ru/ru/first_page/index.php, 2012.

[Federal 2012] Federal State Statistics Service, http://www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat/rosstatsite.eng/, 2012.

[Hramcov 1996] Hramcov P., “Internet in Russia,” Open System, no.1, 1996. http://www.osp.ru/os/1996/01/178799/

[Foundation 2012b] The Foundation for Internet Development, Internet and Science: The 15 year way. The leading specialists in Information Technology, about past, present and future of Internet, http://www.fid.ru/projects/book/, 2012. [in Russian]

[Foundation 2012c] The Foundation for Internet Development, New Era of Internet and Russian Internetization in Russia (1994-2000), http://www.fid.ru/museum/hall3/03/, 2012. [in Russian]

[VEGA 1994] VEGA, Proceedings of NATO Advanced Networking Workshop, Moscow, 1994, http://www.friends-partners.org/oldfriends/telecomm/nato/

[Kouznetsov 1996] Kouznetsov A., “Prospects for the Development of the Internet in Russia,” Proc. 1996 INET, Geneva, Switzerland, June 1996. http://www.isoc.org/inet96/proceedings/h1/h1_2.htm

[Mizin 1996] Mizin I.A., “Status and perspective of development of information and telecommunication technologies for science and education,” The Second International Congress on Education and Informatics, Moscow, July 1996.

[MSK-IX 2012] MSK-IX:Moscow Internet Exchange, http://www.msk-ix.ru/eng/, 2012.

[NaukaNet 2012] NaukaNet Project, http://www.naukanet.org/. 2012.

[OGAS 2012] Obchegosudarstvennaya avtomatizirovannaya sistema, http://ogas.kiev.ua/, 2012. [in Russian]

[ITAR-TASS 2007] ITAR-TASS, Press conference of the Common Space of the Russian language: domain. SU to the 17th anniversary of the day birth, 19 Sep. 2007.

[Radio 2012] Radio-MSU / RUHEP, http://www.radio-msu.net/about.htm, 2012. [in Russia]

[RUHEP 2012] RUHEP, RUHEP Goals, History & Structure, http://www.ruhep.ru/ruhep/history.hep/histor_e.htm, 2012.

[JSCC 2012] JSCC, RASNET (The corporate network of the Russian Academy of Sciences), http://www.jscc.ru/rasnet.shtml, 2012.

[EmNet 2012] EmNet, http://www-sbras.nsc.ru/win/euromath/, 2012. [in Russian]

[RBnet 2012] RBNet (Russian Backbone Network), http://www.rbnet.ru/en/about_en.shtml, 2012.

[RELARN 1994] RELARN, Newsletter of the Association RELARN, 1994. http://www.relarn.ru/conf/conf94/conf5.txt

[RELARN 2012] RELARN (Russian Electronic Academic and Research Network Association), http://www.relarn.ru/about/index.en.html, 2012.

[Relcom 2012] Relcom, Relcom History, http://old.relcom.ru/Relcom/History/Full/, 2012.

[Tabarovsky 1992] Oleg Tabarovsky, Notes on some TCP/IP WAN activities in xSU, 28 Sep. 1992. http://lists.ripe.net/pipermail/ripe-org-closed/1992/msg00202.html

[Sterba 1993] Milan Sterba, "An overview of East and Central European networking activities," RIPE-86, May 1993. ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-086.txt

[RIPN 2012] RIPN, Russian Institute for Public Networks, http://www.ripn.net/about/en/, 2012.

[MARK 2001] MARK, Network ROSPAK User’s Guide, 2001. http:// http://www.mark-itt.ru/MARK-ITT/rospak/

[Rostelecom 2012] Rostelecom, Company History, http://old.rt.ru/en/about/history/1995-1993/index.php, 2012.

[Ogden 1993] Jeff Ogden, Routing of FSU traffic on NSFNET Backbone Service, 12 Dec. 1993. http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/mjts/1993-12/msg00017.html

[RSSI 1999] RSSI (Russian Space Science Internet), http://www.rssi.ru/rssihi_e.html, 1999.

[RUNnet 2012] RUNnet (Federal University Computer Network in Russia), http://www.runnet.ru/, 2012.

[Vasilyev 1995] Vladimir N. Vasilyev, Yuri V. Gugel, Yuri G. Kirchin, and Andrei M. Robachevsky, “RUNNet - Federal University Network of Russia, “ Proc. 1995 INET, Honolulu, July 1995. http://www.isoc.org/inet95/proceedings/PAPER/027/abst.html,

[Foundation 2012e] The Foundation of Internet Development, Collection of Interviews: Aleksandr Nokolaevich Tikhonov, http://www.fid.ru/projects/book/Tihonov/, 2012.

[Sigalov 2001] Sigalov A., “Education and Internet,” Computer-Inform, 2001. http://www.ci.ru/inform23_03/p_06.htm

[Semenyuk 1994] Igor V. Semenyuk, “SOVAM TELEPORT: wide range of telecommunication services,” Proc. NATO Advanced Networking Workshop, Moscow, 1994. http://www.friends-partners.org/oldfriends/telecomm/nato/semenyuk.html.

[TTK 2012] TTK, TransTeleCom, http://www.ttk.ru/rus/59897/59900/61841/, 2012.

[Vasilyev 1994] Vladimir N.Vasilyev, Valery A.Vasenin, Yuri G.Kirchin, Yuri V.Gugel, Andrei M.Robachevsky, “RUNNET Federal University Network of Russia,” Proc. NATO Advanced Networking Workshop, Moscow, Russia, Sep. 1994.

[X25 2011] x.25 Networks, Network IASNET Part 1, May 2011. http://x25networks.ru/2011/05/12/set-iasnet-chast-1/

[Foundation 2012f] The Foundation for Internet Development, Hall 8. Internet in numbers Exposure 1. Internet World: General Statistic, http://www.fid.ru/museum/hall8/01/, 2012. [In Russian]

Remark: The full text version of Internet in Russia(1990~1999) can be found in

Appendix: Country/Region Information - Russia.

Appendix: NETWORK CONFIGURATION @ 01.08.90

By Dmitri Burkov, DEMOS

[tasha]----[ache] [avg386] [dvv]---<- - - -| | Phone Network | | | | P | | =========================== | | | | | | | | | A | | Novell MS-DOS [jumbo] | | | | B |- - | [koch]--->- - - -| |- - | | X | | [dad]---->- - - -| | | | | | ............................. [md1]---->- - - -| | | : | ===== Ethernet : [fox]---->- - - - - - - - | : | ----- RS-232 : [md]----->- - - - - - - - | : | - - - phone line 1200 baud : [bor]---->- - - - - - - - | : | ........................................................ | | DIALOGUE [jvdrd]---< - - - - - - - -| | | [saukh] | | [jvdopd]--<- - - - - - -- -| | [jvdng]---<- - - - - - -- -| ........................................................ | | KIAE | | [cospas] [amet] [berta]---[kiae]---<- - - - - - - - | | | | | =================================================== | | | | | | | ||| | [icp] [cpuv1] [cpuv2] [cpuv3] [cpux3] [cpux8] | | | ============================================ | | | | | | [saa]---> - - - - - - - -| | [alex]--> - - - - - - - -| | [bst]--->- - - - - - - - | | ........................................................ | IPM&CE | [itm514]-->- - - - - - - - | | ........................................................ | Novosibirsk department | of IPM&CE [nfitm]--->- - - - - - - - | ........................................................ | Leningrad IIAS | [gsp]--->- - - - - - - - | ........................................................ | ICSTI | [icsti]->- - - - - - - - |

Please inform avg@hq.demos.su about all changes or any additional information.

Abbreviation:

Leningrad IIAS - Institute for Informatics and Automation USSR

ICSTI - International Center for Scientific and Technical Information

IPM&CE - Institute of Precise Mechanics and Computer Equipment