APCCIRN-044

1994.5.24

Kilnam Chon

Internetworking in Asia by Kilnam Chon, Korea Advanced Institute

of Scient and Technology

Brief History

Computer networking in Asia became popular with readily available

network software packages such as TCP/IP, UUCP and USENET in early

1980s.[Chon] Later, other networks such as Bitnet and Fidonet were

introduced in 1980s. Nationwide network implementation based on these

network software packages were carried out among various countries in

Asia throughout 1980s. The implementation naturally led to the

international links, mostly to USA and some within Asia. By early

1990s, most countries in Asia have domestic networks with

international links. See Table 1 and Figure 1 for further

information.

Coordination

Coordinated Committee of Intercontinental Research Networking(CCIRN)

and its regional committees in North America and Europe were formed in

1987 to coordinate networking for global research and education

communities.[Neggers] The Asia-Pacific Coordinated Committee of

Intercontinental Research Networking (APCCIRN) was formed in early

1990s and joined CCIRN. APCCIN and its engineering planning group,

Asia-Pacific Engineering Planning Group(APEPG) meets twice a year; one

during INET Conference, and the other in the Asia-Pacific region.

APCCIRN started the pilot project on Asia-Pacific Network Information

Center (APNIC), which coordinates global network information center

activities with InterNIC in USA and RIP in Europe. See the article on

APNIC in this issue for further information on APNIC.

APCCIRN set up several working groups to work with the following

issues;

(1) Commercial Services

(2) Developing Countries

(3) Local Language Support

(4) Link Coordination.

Commercial Services

Commercial service is increasingly important in the Internet, and it

is expected to be dominant service provision in USA soon and other

countries later. In Asia, as a late comer to the Internet, the

commercial services started almost at the same time as the non-profit

operation unlike the North America and Europe.

There are two types of services in addition to the traditional

non-profit operations for research and education communities. They

are commercial services, and general services. The former is

for-profit operation. The latter is not necessarily for-profit

operation, but it is rather for cost sharing. Many countries started

the commercial and/or general services. Table 2 shows the current

status compiled at APCCIRN Secretariat.

The ap-commercial Working Group was formed at the APCCIRN/APEPG

Meeting last December, and it was headed by B. Coggershall of Supernet

in Hong Kong.

Developing Countries

Asia is a unique continent where GNP per capita spreads from $150 to

$30,000. Developed and developing countries coexist. The developed

countries have fairly good domestic networking infrastructure with T1

or FT1 international links. In some developing countries, networking

activities are negligible or email is not available yet. The

networking is available over 130 countries, i.e., over eighty percent

of the world.[Landweber] Many of the non-networked countries are in

the Asia-Pacific region and the Arab-Africa region. We need to work

on these countries in addition to improve the networking capability of

weakly-networked countries.

We need to train people, and support to set up networks and

development of applications. APCCIRN set up the working group,

ap-develop last year, and is headed by Dr. D. Narayan of Science

University of Tokyo in Japan. UNESCO has been working in this area

through its Information Infrastructure Program.[UNESCO] Regional

Informatics Network Projects have been implemented as a part of the

program. RINSEAP and RINSCA were established for Southeast Asia and

Pacific, and South and Central Asia, respectively. Other

organizations of the United Nations such as WHO, and UNDP as well as

World Bank are working on to set up the network infrastructure

globally.

We need to come up with regional solutions to work on the

non-networked and the weakly networked countries systematically.

These countries may be better supported regionally by the center of

excellence proposed by UNESCO. Some of regional institutions could

play the instrumental role. Or, we may set up a new institution to

work on this issue and others.

Local Language Support

Many Asian countries use quite different languages from English such

as large character sets. This and other differences force us to

modify the existing network software substantially. Sometimes, we are

forced to develop software from scratch due to substantial difference

from the English version. Since the local language support is a

rather unique issue to Asia, we need to pay particular attention.

Otherwise, the networking is good only in English, which limits usage,

and we may end up with user-unfriendly systems.

APCCIRN has the working group, ap-i18n to work on this issue. The

group is headed by Dr. M. Ohta of Tokyo Institute of Technology in

Japan. Internationally, various organizations are working on the

local language support, which is called internationalization and

localization. The former provides the framework on which all local

languages are supported, and the latter is on actual implementation of

the local language support. To have a unified view on the

localization, the localization profile for each country or region is

necessary. International Standards Organization is working on the

internationalization through its technical committee JTC1, and

subcommittees. Uniforum and X/Open are working together on the

subject. Other organizations such as IEEE and OSF are also working on

various issues through their working groups.

Among the Asian countries, Japan and Republic of Korea have fairly

well developed local language support in their network environments.

Chinese language support is being developed by various countries and

regions, and their effort need to be harmonized. Many other languages

are supported in the Internet and other networks, and their usages

vary among countries.

We need to work out in two levels; one at global and regional levels

on internationalization, and the other at an individual country or a

language region on localization. We need to come up with the

internationalized network software. The localized network software

may be handled through local clearinghouses.

Universal code systems such as Unicode and ISO 10640 may have major

impact to the internationalization and localization.[ISO] Since the

systems offer the generic framework which makes localization to

specific language environment much easier and consistent. On the

other hand, the harmonized development of such a code system is not

easy at all.

Link Coordination

Most of the international leased lines in the Asia-Pacific region is

to the USA. The leased lines to Europe and within the Asia-Pacific

region are not popular. There are several reasons to the phenomenon.

(1) Intercontinental leased lines cost marginally more than

intracontinental leased lines.

(2) All countries primarily communicate with USA.

(3) One fat pipe makes more sense than multiple thin pipes.

By connecting to the same place in USA or in the region with a fat

pipe to USA, we can solve the problem of intracontinental exchanges

among the Asia-Pacific countries.[Chon] Global Internet Exchange(GIX)

is the model proposed.[Almes] The European group implemented GIX in

the east coast of USA, and is working on its extension to allow

distributed GIX by supporting multiple GIXs. For the Asia-Pacific

community, it is natural if the Asia-Pacific GIX is located in the

west coast of USA or in the Pacific. For the distributed GIX, the

problem is who to support the link between GIXs as we need fat pipes

for the link. The cost for the Atlantic link is shared between USA

and Europe, and a similar scheme may work for the Pacific. For future

link coordination, the emerging commercial operations should be taken

into account as they may play the major role.

CAREN is one of the regional networks which provide Intra-continental

links. It links Japan, Korea and Taiwan with addition of China soon.

Networked Information

Networked information is an emerging major issue to the Asia-Pacific

community. As networking becomes more common, information access

becomes more important. In addition to general issues of the global

networking community, we need to address an additional issue on the

local language support. Most of the information materials in the

region are in local languages, i.e., non-English. This causes

problems on information tools, translation, and other issues on

natural languages.

Pacific Neighborhood Consortium headed by Prof. C. Hardyck of the

University of California is addressing the issue of sharing

information among the Pacific Rim countries.[Hardyck] The consortium

was established in early 1990s, and it meets annually.

Concluding Remarks

The Asia-Pacifc networking community may be able to contribute to

globalization of the Internet by addressing some of the above issues

and others. The globalization of the Internet is very important for

development of good global information infrastructure. As part of the

global information infrastructure, Asian Information Infrastructure

based on the Asian Information Highway would be the issue our

community should address in the coming years.

Reference

G. Almes, et al, Global Internet Exchange(GIX), Working Paper, IEPG,

1992.

APCCIRN, gopher apccirn@krnic.net.

K. Chon, et al(ed.), Proc. of Pacific Computer Communications

Symposium, 1985.

K. Neggers, "CCIRN," Proc. of INET, 1992.

ISO, Multi-Octet Code System, IS 10646, 1993.

L.H. Landweber, International Connectivity, Version 10, Feb. 1994.

C. Hardyck, Pacific Neighborhood Consortium, 1993.

UNESCO, Academic and Research Networks in the Asia and Pacific Region,

1992.

Kilnam Chon holds Ph.D from the University of California, Los Angeles.

He worked at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Rockwell International in

USA on networking related projects before he went to Korea in 1979.

He is a professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and

Technology, and his research interests include networking and

distributed processing. He chairs Asia-Pacific Coordinating Committee

on International Research Networking(APCCIRN), and co-chairs CCIRN.

He can be reached as chon@cosmos.kaist.ac.kr.

Table 1

Country/Region with Country/Region with

International Leased Line International Dialup

----------------------------------- --------------------

Australia China Hong Kong French Polynesia

Fiji India Japan Sri Lanka Vietnam

Korea Malaysia New Zealand Indonesia Iran

Philippines Singapore Taiwan Pakistan

Thailand

Table 2

Country Commercial Service Provider General Service Provider

------- --------------------------- ------------------------

Hong Kong Supernet

India Softnet

Japan ATT-JENS, IIJ, PSI Japan

Korea (Korea Telecom), (Dacom)

Malaysia (MIMOS)

Singapore Technet

Taiwan HiNet Seednet