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User views
from outside of Western Europe
MarkoBonac,
[email protected]
Arnes, Slovenia
Candidate countries: great potential
EC document:
Science, Technology and Innovation in EU+ 2002:
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Candidate countries spend relatively less for R&D in relation to GDP.
Number of patents is low (due to the rather recent emergence of
intellectual property rights regime).
Many candidate countries perform relatively better in the production
of scientific papers.
Candidate countries have high number of researchers
(17,8 % of that in the EU).
Candidate countries possess a huge potential capacity to produce
scientific and technological knowledge.
Integration of candidate countries in the Framework Programme
and the European Research Area opens new dimensions
and opportunities for Europe
Typical story from less developed
European country
 We have many universities
 They are distributed over the country
 They have not enough academic staff
except the ones in mayor cities
There are not enough libraries
The laboratories lack modern equipment
Salaries are low
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 Our computer network is the only tool
to access information and to collaborate
in international projects
The user requirements are similar in more
and less developed European countries
SERENATE questionnaire:
“Does your current or foreseen research
involve Digital Libraries ?”
More developed:
yes
46 %
Less developed:
yes
51 %
The user requirements are similar in more
and less developed European countries
SERENATE questionnaire:
“Do you use video conferencing or other forms
of remote conferencing in your research ?”
More developed:
yes
22 %
Less developed:
yes
16 %
The user requirements are similar in more
and less developed European countries
SERENATE questionnaire:
“Is Grid computing being considered
in your research area ? ”
More developed:
yes
15 %
Less developed:
yes
12 %
The research collaboration is similar
SERENATE questionnaire:
If your research involve distant collaborators,
what fraction of them are
from other institutions in your own country
– More developed: 31 %
– Less developed: 34 %
in a different European country
– More developed: 41 %
– Less developed: 43 %
outside Europe ?
– More developed: 28 %
– Less developed: 23 %
The network traffic is similar
SERENATE questionnaire:
What fraction of your network traffic,
coming in or going out, involves
European institutions
– More developed: 59 %
– Less developed: 58 %
and what fraction involves institutions outside Europe ?
– More developed: 41 %
– Less developed: 42 %
Hierarchy in research networking
 local network
 access network
 metropolitan network
 national backbone
 international connectivity
For the end user it is often difficult to know
where the problems (e.g. congestion) are.
The gap is becoming bigger
Comparing research network elements in more
and less developed European countries:
International capacity: 1:1000
National links:
1:5000
The gap is bigger than ever before.
From TERENA Compendium 2002
 International connectivity is not a problem any

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more for those NRENs who can afford Gbps
access to GEANT network.
International connectivity is still a problem for
less developed countries.
For more developed countries the congestion is
more often in
– local network and/or
– access network and/or
– metropolitan network.
Networking is relatively more expensive
in less developed European countries
 GDP per capita in Candidate countries is 25 to 70 %
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of the EU average.
Telecommunication infrastructure is missing.
Telecommunication market is often not yet
liberalized - high prices for leased lines.
Most of less developed countries are small – this
brings additional problems.
NREN budget par capita 2002
It is dependant on size of the country and
not on its GDP per capita (as one would expect) !
NREN budget per capita in 2002 (Terena Compendium)
0,5 EUR/cap
1 EUR/cap
More than 1 EUR/cap
--------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
Czech Rep.
Estonia
Lithuania
Latvia
Denmark
Belgium
United Kingdom
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ireland
Portugal
Croatia
Slovenia
The Netherlands
Norway
Finland
Switzerland
Running an NREN in small country is
expensive
In a small country it is more expensive
(calculated per user) to provide the same level of service.
 Relatively more international capacity is needed
 Low capacity circuits are relatively more expensive
 Circuits of the same capacity are often more expensive
 The NREN needs the same effort to introduce a new
service
International capacity needed (2001)
NREN
total int.
in country capacity
 Germany
 France
 UK
 Slovenia
 Ireland
 Switzerland
 Luxembourg
1000
850
800
45
120
300
20
pop.
82
59
60
2
3.7
7
0.4
capacity/
mil.pop
12
14
13
23
32
43
50
Average traffic received from GEANT
July 2002
Average received traffic per capita in
Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia, Greece,
Hungary, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Switzerland
was at least 6 times greater than in
France, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain
Price for international circuit is not a
linear function of capacity
1.200
price
per
Mbps
1.000
0.800
0.600
0.400
0.200
0.000
0
capacity
in Mbps
Circuits of the same capacity
are more expensive in small countries
 There is less demand for high capacity circuits
 Telecommunication market is often not yet
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liberalized
In many cases there is only one operator
Telecommunication regulator has the same task
and so it is understaffed
What should be done to narrow
the digital divide ?
What is done:
 Governments are supporting research networks

in less developed countries.
5FP (and 6FP) supports international connectivity.
What should be done:
 Countries should accelerate the liberalization process

in telecommunication sector.
The EC should find ways to finance other components
of research networks.
A wish from Greece
(SERENATE questionnaire)
Currently, each simulation takes 40 hours of real time on
the largest available supercomputer in Europe and the
vizualization takes another 10-20 hours on local
workstations. To obtain useful resuls, we need to explore
dozens of such simulations. With a 10Gbps network and
grid computing, our simulations would run much faster
and the vizualization could be done remotely on a parallel
supercomputer. In this way, we could rapidly explore
dozens of simulation, arriving at useful conclusion much
faster than today. Still, definitive answers to our research
problem could be given only by very high-resolution
simulations and such simulations will be possible only
when networks of 100Gbps will become available.
Global connectivity where are the priorities ?
Current status
 GEANT provides good international connectivity
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among most European countries
There is good connectivity between Europe and USA.
It is difficult to provide good connectivity to countries
in other continents
– as they have no pan-continental network and
– sometimes not even a national research network.
Where are the priorities ?
 Where are priorities from research point of view ?
Japan, China, Russia, India ….
How to find this out ?
 There are also priorities from political point of view.
How to achieve the priorities ?
 Should Europe finance the lines to chosen
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countries ? Pay for half of the costs ?
Should Europe try to export its model:
– one research network per country
– one pan-continental network in every continent ?