draft minutes of the Connectivity WG

Item Subject: i:\...\minutes.txt

Minutes of the Connectivity-WG session
RIPE20, 26.1.1995, Amsterdam
=======================================

Agenda presented by Milan Sterba

0. Scribe: Christian.Panigl@localhost - many thanks

1. National reports for new countries:

    New Counytries Hostcount (presented by MS)
    Country Overview (what to talk about) (presented by MS)

	international connectivity
	territorial coverage
	new services
	projects to be accomplished soon
	other providers (peerings and arrangements)
	problems

    BG: (supplement by Christian Panigl)

        International lines (very unstable):
        9.2kb Sofia-Vienna (Academy of Science, to be replaced by 64kb
                            satellite soon)
        9.2kb Blagoevgrad-Vienna (American University)

        AUBG.BG and ACAD.BG (CICT) not yet interconnected locally

        additional service provider: EUnet

    CZ: (Vaclav Novak)

        International lines:
        512kb Praha-Amsterdam (EMPB)
        128kb Praha-Vienna (EBONE, to be upgraded to 256kb soon)
        128kb Praha-Bratislava (SANET.SK)

        National lines:
        mainly 128kb and 64kb connecting Liberec, Ostrava, Olomouc, Brno,
        Plzen and Ceske Budejovice

        Service providers: CESnet, COnet = EUnet CZ
 …	Do not have official agreement but exchange traffic

	New : Prague academic MAN now runs on an ATM backbone (six sites)

    HU: (Geza Turchanyi)
	(didn…t want to present anything because of major discussions
	going on internally in Hungary)

        International lines:
        2*64kb Budapest-Vienna (EBONE, to be replaced by 1*256kb soon)
        512kb(+128kb) Budapest-EMPB/EuropaNET

    LI: connected via EUnet (e-mail only)

    MA: connected via EUnet (e-mail only)

    MK: connected via Slovenia (e-mail only)

    PL: (Lukasz Ploszajski) see http://www.nask.org.pl/NASK/ripe-info.html

        International lines:
        2Mb   Warsaw-Stockholm (satellite NORDUNET,UNISOURCE)
        128kb Warsaw-Vienna (EBONE)
        9.6kb to Moscow and Minsk
        64kb  Stockholm-Lviv (satellite)

        National lines:
        NASK national infrastructure is based on medium (64 kbit/s) or high
        (2 Mbit/s) speed lines among 10 major cities (Warszawa, Torun,
        Gdansk, Szczecin, Poznan, Wroclaw, Katowice, Krakow, Lublin, Lodz).
        There are metropolitan networks operating in majority of these
        cities and in the nearest future all these cities will be covered by
        high speed MANs. All intercity lines are going to be upgraded to 2
        Mbit/s.  There is also a dozen of towns interconnected via 9.6
        kbit/s links.

        ATM-Pilot services in Warsaw (WARNET)

    RO: (Eugenie Staicut)

        International lines:
        9.6kb Bucharest-Vienna (UniCom, to be replaced by 64kb satellite soon)
        9.6kb Bucharest-EMPB/EuropaNET (Polytech)
	low speed line to Moldova (operated by UniCom)

        National lines:
        UniCom and Polytech not yet interconnected locally (will be done
        Feb/Mar 95), ~20 leased lines to UniCom(16 within Bucarest, 4 in the cou
	~7 leased lines to Polytech

        Commercial providers:
        EUnet (international public X.25 to Paris), PIPEX (satellite to Budapest
	Rompak/Transpac(no IP services yet)

    RU: (Alexei Platonov - state academic projects)
	
	The academic community relies on both commercial (Relcom, IASnet)
	and academic providers (Moskow State University/DFN), Russian Space Science Age
	Freenet (represents Russia in TERENA))

	Goal : provide services to all tge scientific communitz by means of all network
	which work correctly = RELARN project

	In Moskow - the optical backbone has problems with cost sharing, it has brought
	much technical experience, is now split into two parts :
	South - running, financed by International Science Foundation (Soros)
	North - planned state project of the Moskow MAN

	In regions - the concept is to create regional NAPs (St. Petersburg, Moskow,
	Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Chabarovsk) and a backbone network to interconnect
	them. Users connect to the net thru regional providers, connected to the NAPs.


        (Dimiri Burkov - Relcom)

	Local situation - communications paradise in Moskow for the rich
			- do it yourself situation in St. Petersburg
			- allmost nothing anywhere else

	Major players - SovAm, Sprint group, Relcom, RUNNET - all have important plans
	to implement national backbones over highre speed satellite links. Dima talks
	most-all of them to 1) establish relationship and connectivity within Moskow
	2) proceed jointly in setting up national satellite overlay and 3) jointly
	participate in CIX international.

	Many small resellers of the big : IASnet, Glasnet, Freenet are customers of
	Relcom, and there are many others.


    LB: (Sam Lutfallah)

        International lines:
        provided by LIBANPAC (FranceTelecom/ItalianCable), X.25, satellite
        and marine cable

        restrictions for international data communications reported;
        international lines extremly expensive; reselling data-communication
        services is not allowed; network literacy problem

        Hints from the audience to overcome restrictions:
        "establish association, services for members only"; "don't ask, do
        it"; "tag it experimental, not service"

    JO: (Imad Ayoub)

        NETS company provides e-mail services, since 1994 (~120 customers)
        only analog circuits available
        requests (RIPE) cookbook for new service-providers (not only
        routing, registry and the like, but also higher level services like
        news, mail, ...)

2. PHARE and DANTE: (Michael Behringer)

    PHARE project managed by DANTE (see: http://www.dante.net/PHARE.html);
    PHARE money not restricted to EuropaNET connectivity, essentially the countr
    national academic network itself decides which line the money should go into

    EuropaNET AUP has gone, but is still primarily research and developpment
    and has no commercial customers directly connected. The correct use of
    the PHARE project money is enforced thru a carefull selection of the
    EuropaNET customers (national national academic networks).

    Dima Burkov complains about unrestricted reselling of the capacity
    in Baltic states. Answer : "We cannot strictly control what is sent
    over these lines"

    Peering with Ebone and EUnet.


List of PHARE financed lines as stated by Michael (installed/planned)



Albania_________0/64 kbps to Italy lack of contacts even snail mail doesnt pass

Bulgaria________0/64 kbps satellite; destination undecided, lack of communicatio

Czech Repub.____512/512 kbps to EMPB (installed, INET)
                Backup link 64/128 kbps to Budapest

Estonia_________Upgrade of the existing 128 kbps to NorduNET (Helsinki)
		64/64 Latvia

Hungary_________128/512 to EuropaNET (Amsterdam or Bern)
		64/128  to EuropaNET Prague

Latvia__________0/2Mbit to NORDUnet.
                Currently LV is serviced through a 64 kbps to EE

Lithuania_______64 kbps to LV; currently 64 kbps  satellite to Oslo

Poland__________2 Mbps satellite to NorduNET

Romania_________64k bps satellite to Ebone, Vienna

Slovakia________128 kbps link to CZ, Prague

Slovenia________786 kbps to EuropaNET in Amsterdam



4. Peerings & Partners of EBONE (Bernard Tuy, see: http://www.urec.fr/Ebone)

    POPs in Paris, Vienna, Munich, Stockholm, Geneva

    New installed peering (currently 128k) between EUnet (Amsterdam) and
    EBONE (Vienna), old with EuropaNET, Nordunet

5. PIPEX (Keith Mitchell, see: http://www.pipex.net/)

    Activities in Central and Eastern Europe :
   	64 kbit to Slovenia, local PIPEX IP services reseller Quantum
	VSAT POP in Hungary - Banknet, aimed to resell services over all CEE


6. RIPE Connectivity Document Store Status

	The invitation to RIPE NCC contributors to join the CDS has worked quite well
	and has to be repeated periodically (action Milan Sterba)

	CDS home page needs rewriting

	Join the CDS (SEND YOUR MAPS, FACTSHEETS, URLs)

	
ACTIONS :

MS Send out periodically a call to RIPE NCC contributors to publish in the CDS
MS Update the CDS home page
MS Produce a metrics sheet for the CDS