A sustainable global telecommunication network, like the Internet, relies primarily on the infrastructures of the countries' public networks. The Government and research community involvement, enthusiasm, and support are essential for the process to spread, gain a sustainable inertia and a steady growth.
In this plan I tried to address those issues, and proposed directives that might lead to a functional, abundant and inexpensive Internet connection, accessible campus, country and maybe region wide. I believe that AUB should raise within the next three years its state of connectivity to a level where it will become a by facto regional Internet hub and a pool of electronic information resources.
I consider George Sadowsky's paper1 "Network Connectivity for Developing Countries" as an essential guideline to any future Internet networking plan. The paper's relevance to AUB, the Lebanese and the region electronic data networking, Internet, is enormous. i.e. Internet refers to local, regional and international internetting.
Also, I tried to keep the proposed directives in line with the Personal Computing and Networking Services (PCNS) strategic plan as presented in "PC Networking on Campus and Beyond"(2) .
Beyond the Challenges
When I first investigated in August 1991 the introduction of the Internet to AUB and Lebanon, and after consulting with experts from Irvine, Edmonton and McGill Universities, I realized that the task might be arduous and lengthy but accepted the challenge with enthusiasm.
The consulted experts and most of the Internet initiating publications refer to the communication task as an ordinary transfer of communication technologies and to the various Internet applications as straight organizational matters. Very true, but only applies to the developed world where the telecommunication infrastructure is adequate, available and competitive, the technical and administrative experience are well established and the products supply and support are easily accessible and efficient.
The perplexities and implications of the task were way beyond anticipation. The Lebanese infrastructure, telecommunication, power and others, were devastated by sixteen years of war. The Lebanese PTT, as in the majority of the developing countries, is mostly owned by the government which implies a monopoly on telecommunication services and reluctance in the provision of adequate competitive services. The local expertise is volatile and the telecommunication related products supply is mainly based on financial brokers. The government showed a passive interest and has somewhat different priorities and other more basic or urgent obligations to fulfill.
Last but not least, is the striking lack in the "Cultural adaptation to the global Electronic community". Passiveness from the government to the global connectivity process was expected but from the AUB community it was shocking. Early in the process, PCNS, under the auspices of the Vice President for Administration, surveyed the campus and the local academic and research communities for expertise or at least active contribution to the campus computing and networking process. After four months, July to November 1992, of meetings with schools' delegates, we were reluctant to report the results of the "Human Resources Survey Form", six replies, two of them not relevant.
Human Resources
I like to believe that the campus survey came as a premature step, too close to the civil war end. The best support for this theory is the recent increasing number of inquisitive people on campus.
Since early September 1993, we are holding monthly planning meetings and bi-weekly idea exchange and utilities testing sessions at the PCNS facilities. The major covered areas are:
- Internet access management policies. - Internet technical aspects & bandwidth improvement. - Introducing Internet, seminars and workshops. - Email address schemes & allocations of charges. - Students' Waffle based network. - Information resources news, email, gopher and BBS. - Schools and departments Local Area Networks design. - Buildings and offices wiring topologies. - Campus Backbone implementation. - Off-campus access, AUB's community and others. - Security issues. - Network management and monitoring. - Public domain versus commercial applications. - Unix, Windows, and Macintosh environments. - Lebanese Research Network, a must.Participants are encouraged to actively contribute in the discussions, research, management, secretarial and technical tasks. The sessions are open to the campus public, professors and students. The discussions are informal and quite informative but poorly advertised and not very productive.
Lately we revived a plan where user groups faculty members will supervise small students projects each leading to a specific product/objective. Also we hope that a group of volunteers will take charge of the Campus Computing and Networking news letter project.
Prohibitive Costs
As AUB's access bandwidth, connection time and volume requirements to the Internet increase, Libanpac charging scheme will grow to be more and more prohibitive. i.e. Libanpac has a nationwide monopoly on the Packet Switching Network (PSN), AUB access to the Internet is based on a Libanpac 9.6 kbps X.25 leased line.
AUB's present Internet link can technically support the complete set of the Internet features, but I believe that AUB should only provide e-mail access. AUB is paying around $240 per Mega Byte (MB) for outgoing and incoming connection time and volume. The estimated batched and compressed e-mail volume consumed by 100 users is around 20 MB per month, a yearly liability of $58,000. For an itemized list of Internet e-mail costs versus total number of users please refer to Table I.
Early in the negotiation process with Libanpac AUB requested a special education discount based on monthly bandwidth engagements. AUB is expecting around 25% discount for a monthly volume engagement greater than 20 MB. AUB's case has no precedent and apparently would require a ministerial intervention.
Bandwidth Abuse
Bandwidth abuse is a controversial issue with complex implications. The trivial question is, how can you define, detect and reduce e-mail bandwidth abuse? The Internet Society clich‚ answer "Simply rely on the Internet's users ethics".
Good enough, if the institution in question is not charged for the extra bandwidth which is the case of most of the academic institutions in the developed word. AUB for the time being is not that fortunate and has to pay heavy dollars for the outgoing and incoming communication volumes. Therefore, preceding the opening of the Internet e-mail access to the vast community the administration should agree on a set of access permissions and charging policies.
The Computer center and PCNS users' access administrative authority should stop at the organizational and dispatching level. The proposed policy is the following:
Securing Internet e-mail access bandwidth is the responsibility of the user. PCNS will only assume a dispatching role, any user with approved Internet e-mail budget will be granted access. The access will be automatically blocked upon the depletion of the allocated budget with or without prior notice.
The proposed access permission will be regulated by the availability of funds. The procedure is simple; a user should complete an "Email Budget Request", secure the requested approvals and then forward the request to PCNS. His e-mail account will be updated accordingly within one working day. Periodically, PCNS will report the status of the users accounts. Each user is responsible for his outgoing and incoming mail. PCNS will not publish users e-mail addresses.
Following are possible channels of e-mail Internet budget:
Physical Access
Users connected to AUB's campus backbone will access the Internet mail hub directly through the network, they will use the same mailing applications they are using today for their local mail. The Internet mail redirection will be fully transparent for those users. i.e. around 125 nodes today distributed over 8 interconnected local area networks. The connected LANs are: Vice President, Computer Center, CC Open Students Lab, PCNS, PCNS Training Workshop, Information System. The Comptroller's Office, Budget Office, Internal Auditor, Personnel and Purchasing cluster are partially connected.
Users connected to isolated departmental local area networks (LAN) will access the Internet mail hub in a similar way as above except that their local mailer will act as a transparent mail relay. The mail relay will periodically exchange, via modem, the batched mail messages with a backbone connected host. i.e. around 75 nodes today distributed over 5 local area networks. The fiber optic backbone scheduled for this year will connect all the LANs to the campus wide backbone. The available LANS are: Mathematics Department, Medical Library, Development Office. The Auxiliary Services and Physical Plant are Partially connected.
Standalone workstations will connect, via modems, to a Unix based mailer host. AUB's PABX was equipped with ISDN data capabilities for 50 nodes. i.e. connecting extra workstations would require the purchasing of extra ISDN data adapters or analog modems.
Breaking Costs
Internet protocol overhead communication exchange volume is quite important. To reduce the protocol related communication costs, AUB installed the Lebanese Name Domain servers and the corresponding ARP reverse address resolution servers on a number of remote sites. In addition to that, AUB is using a remote Internet mail relay host and files exchange pool relay host. Both relay hosts were configured as if they were AUB local. i.e. equipped with enough intelligence to accept or reject forwarding of messages and files.
AUB today benefits from full Internet features and bypasses the restrictions and cost burden of the dialup X.25 link. The above mentioned servers and relay hosts are courtesy of:
For serious Internet connectivity, AUB should acquire from the Lebanese PTT a 9.6 kbps AVD leased line to France, Vienna, Turkey or Amsterdam. The AVD line will cost AUB a monthly flat rate of around $7,400 ($6,400 for the line plus $1,000 for maintenance) and will permit 24 hours a day Internet connectivity and at least 25% bandwidth improvement.
For an indicative self explanatory AVD leased line overall savings as compared to the dialup X.25 line please refer to Table and Graph II.
During the past three years AUB acquired a solid networking experience. The technical and managerial involvement covered the wide spectrum of LANs and WANs including design, procurement, installation, wiring, configuration, optimization, debugging and training. AUB's current, under implementation and planned network is by far the most important in the country. AUB's position is ahead of other universities and we should share our experience and at the same time benefit from our lead.
By providing technical and managerial services and possibly home to part of the regional network resources, AUB can benefit from project's allocated funds and boost its local and global connectivity.
(1) George Sadowski is director of the Academic Computing Facility of New York University and technical expert in national and international networking. Author of "Network Connectivity for Developing Countries". August 1993, ACM. (copy enclosed)
(2) PC Networking on Campus and Beyond , Strategic Plan , outlines the networking directions to be persued by Personal Computing and Networking Services in collaboration with the user community over the next two years. June 6 ,1993.
