

ripe-74
version 5
November 1992









		<Milan.Sterba@inria.fr>



1. Introduction

This paper is based on work of the RIPE Connectivity Working Group.  It
summarises the main issues of international connectivity of East and
Central European countries (ECE).  It is based on reports and
information gathered by network representatives of these countries,
who have been present at the meetings or contacted on other occasions. 



Thanks are due to all those who helped us to gather the information. 
Some countries however, are not represented in this report, due to lack
of information.  Please contact the author if you have amendments or
suggestions. 



This report contains lists of people who are responsible for
international networking in each of their countries and a map of the
current situation in IP networking in the those countries.  The map
doesn't show all existing international lines of those countries but it
seeks to be complete for IP lines and other leased lines without usage
restrictions for the academic and research communities. 



This report has been written by Milan Sterba <Milan.Sterba@vse.cs> and
it does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the authors of the
national reports nor those of the RIPE community. 

2. Present situation

This chapter gives as detailed as possible description of the various
network activities in the East and Central European countries.  The
sections for particular countries will be subject to regular
amendments or changes. 



Considerable progress has been made during the last year in IP
connectivity of ECE countries.  Czechoslovakia and Poland have today,
several hundreds of connected hosts each and are the most advanced ECE
countries with respect to IP connectivity. 



Bulgaria, Estonia and Hungary do also have IP connectivity today and
have several tens of connected hosts each.  By the end of 1992 IP
connectivity will probably also reach Latvia an d Lithuania through
NORDUnet and maybe also Romania and one of the CIS republics. 



In all the connected countries the initial capacity of international
lines has rapidly become insufficient and it has been sought to upgrade
existing lines and set up reasonable backup solutions.  Internetworking 
is rapidly spreading and good IP connectivity is considered as the first
priority by the national academic network organisations. 



All the countries considered have at the present time some (often more
than one) connection to international networks.  Certain countries
have only a dial-up e-mail connectivity, others have low or medium speed
leased lines.  The present state of international leased lines to ECE
countries is represented on the map in Appendix A.



RIPE broadly contributes to this rapid evolution by technical advice and
by coordination efforts. 

2.1 Albania

An electronic mail connection used to exist between the University of
Tirana and the Internet.  The gateway and relay function resided at
CNUCE, Peso, Italy.  This connection seems not be operational any more. 



Contact Persons:

o Maxim Raco <maksi@dinf.uniti.al>- University of Tirana

o Francesco Gennai <francesco.gennai@cnuce.cnr.it> - CNUCE, Pisa, Italy

2.2 Baltic countries

All three Baltic countries have a plan to develop Research and Education
Networks, called respectively ESTNET, LATNET and LITNET and the Baltic
backbone BALTBONE should link them together (Kaunas, Vilnius, Riga,
Tartu, Tallinn) and to the global Internet via NORDUnet.  A LISTSERV
mailing list exists for this purpose (NORDBALT@searn.sunet.se). 

2.2.1 Estonia

Estonia works in close co-operation with NORDUnet in setting up external
IP links.  Currently a 64 kbits/s IP satellite link is operational
between Tallinn and Stockholm, and between Tartu and Stockholm.  These
lines connect the Baltic backbone network (BaltNet) to the rest of the
Internet.  Another 64 kbit/s IP line is operational between Tallinn and
Helsinki. 



Inside Estonia IP links are currently planned between the Institute of
Cybernetics and the University of Technology in Tallinn and the Tartu
University. 

    

Contact persons:

o Ants Work <ants@ioc.ee> - Institute of Cybernetics,
	               	 Tallinn

2.2.2 Latvia

An international 14.4 kbit/s IP line connects the Institute of
Informatics and Computer Science of Latvian University in Riga to the
Institute of Cybernetics in Tallinn, Estonia.  This line is part of the
Baltic backbone network (BaltNet).  Other networks active in Latvia have
only dial-up connections (FidoNet to Tallinn and Helsinki, RELCOM to
Moskow). 



Inside Latvia X25 services are available from the public X25 network
Latpak and Sprint, UUCP services are available from JET, Versia and
Robosoft, the latvian partners of REL-COM-EUnet.  FidoNet also is very
active. 



Contact persons:

o Guntis Barzdins <gbarzdin@cs.lu.riga.lv> - BaltNet

o Ugis Berzins <ugis@fidogate.riga.lv> - BaltNet

o Alexander Kirpa <ank@robosoft.riga.lv> - Robosoft Ltd. 

o Sergei Rotanov <rotanov@lumii.lat.su> - Institute of Electronics

o Dmitry Sazonov <dima@jet.riga.lv> - JET (RELCOM Riga)

o Janis Sudnieks <john@versia.riga.lv> - Versia Ltd. 

2.2.3 Lithuania

A dial-up EUnet connection exists between Vilnius and Helsinki
(Finland).  A 9.6 kbit/s X.25 link, used for X.400 electronic mail and
sponsored by Norwegian Telecom, exists between Vilnius and Oslo
(Norway). 



Contact persons:

o Laimutis Telksnys <telksnys@ma-mii.lt.su> - Institute for Mathemat
ics, Vilnius

o Algirdas Pakstas <Algirdas.Pakstas@idt.unit.no> - Institute for
Mathematics, Vilnius

2.3 Bulgaria

A switched international X.25 connection connects the Bulgarian EARN
node in Sofia to Linz (Austria).  A dial-up connection over public X.25
connects the Bulgarian EUnet via the backbone node in Varna to the
Internet via the EUnet node in Heraklion (Greece).  This connection will
be converted to IP/X25 and will be the first IP connection in Bulgaria. 
Coordination between both projects, resulting in a shared fixed IP
connection, is under study. 



Several tens of EUnet sites are now connected over dial-up links to the
national EUnet backbone.  A public X25 service is available to a limited
extent.  EARN services have been opened recently at Sophia University
but no gateway exists between the two services yet. 



Contact persons:

o Daniel Kalchev <daniel@danbo.bg> - EUnet backbone manager BG, contact
for BG top level domain

o Anton Velichkov <vam@bgearn.bitnet> - EARN president for Bulgaria
Alexander Simeonov <sasho@bgearn.bitnet> - Center for Informatics,
Sophia

2.4 Commonwealth of Independent States. 

Dial-up connections between Helsinki (Finland) and Amsterdam
(Netherlands) on the one hand, and Moscow on the other hand connect the
RELCOM network in Russia and a few other former USSR republics to the
Internet.  Currently the services consist of electronic mail and Network
News.  A medium speed IP line to Amsterdam is planned in the near
future.  Recently another 14.4 kbit/s IP link has been put between Moskow and 
AlterNet (USA). On this link only SMTP traffic is allowed. A 4.8 kbit/s leased 
line between Moscow and DESY, Hamburg (Germany), supporting IP, delivers 
HEPnet services to two research institutes in Moscow.  Low speed links 
between Moscow and ESOC (Germany) and CNES (France) serve the space physics 
community.  All existing IP links to CIS have full connectivity only to the 
European part of Internet.  The 9.6 kbit/s leased line from Moscow to 
Copenhagen (Denmark) which used to connected the EARN node in Moscow to the 
EARN/BITNET network has been replaced by a dial-up link to Stockholm due to 
funding problems. 


A considerable effort undertaken by the RELCOM networking organization
has brought e-mail connectivity to several thousands of sites all over
the former Soviet Union.  The growth of the network was several 100% a
year.  RELCOM has been operating some IP links in the Moskow and St. 
Petersbourg areas and some other places (Novosibirsk, Barnaul in
Altai).  Other national IP connections are expected to connect Ukraina,
Siberia, St.  Petersbourg, Far East and other regions in order to setup
a kernel of a nation wide IP backbone.  The whole network has some 60
regional centres, some of which connect more than 500 sites.  RELCOM's
international traffic is split over two dial-up lines, one to the Finish
EUnet backbone and one the central EUnet node in Amsterdam.  Both
operate as gateways on application level.  The rapidly growing volume of
international mail traffic makes the need for a medium speed IP channel
to Europe an urgency.  Part of the international traffic is carried by
the filtered IP line to AlterNet. 



The first EARN node started its operation in Moscow late in 1991, but
the spreading of EARN services is still expected.  An e-mail gateway now
exists between RELCOM DEMOS and SUEARN.  SUEARN also provides the
international mail relay services for FREENET, a national research IP
network which interconnects some 45 institutes of the Academy of
Sciences mostly in the Moskow area with international connections to
Jaroslavl and Baku. 



The current situation has been badly affected by the split of RELCOM
into two independent entities (RELCOM RelTeam Ltd.  and RELCOM DEMOS).
Each of them holds a part of CIS network users and part of international
connectivity.  While RELCOM RelTeam Ltd.  has inherited the RELCOM's
membership in EUnet, RELCOM DEMOS seems to position itself as a partner
of AlterNet in CIS.  Negotiations are still underway to find a
cooperative approach to national and international connectivity. 



In July 1992 an official decision has been taken by the Ministry of
Science and Higher Education, the Academy of Sciences and the Russian
Scientific Center (Kurchatov Institute) to form the Russian Electronic
Academic and Research Network (RELARN) which will use RELCOM as
transport infrastructure. 

 

Contact persons:

o Valery Bardin <fox@ussr.eu.net> - EUnet - RELCOM

o Alexej Platonov <plat@kiae.su> - RELARN

o Misha Popov <popov@hq.demos.su> - EUnet - RELCOM Demos

o Andrej Mendkovich <mend@suearn2.bitnet> - CIS EARN director

o Nickolay M.Saukh <nms@ussr.eu.net> - EUnet - RELCOM

o Igor Sviridov <sia@lot.cs.kiev.ua> - EUnet - Ukraine contact. 

o Oleg Tabarovsky <olg@ussr.eu.net> - EUnet - RELCOM

o Dima Volodin <dvv@hq.demos.su> - EUnet - RELCOM Demos

2.5 Czechoslovakia

A 64 kbit/s IP link between Prague and Linz (Austria) is operational
today.  The line is full IP carrying general IP, EARN and czech EUnet
traffic.  A second link, 19.2 kbit/s between Bratislava and Vienna is
shared between EUnet traffic and general IP traffic and IXI.  The
upgrade of this link to 64 kbit/s is planned for the near future.  Both
links connect into the upcoming national academic backbone networks
CESNET (Czech Educational and Scientific Network) and SANET (Slovak
Academic Network).  Both networks are interconnected with IP links with
the aggregate capacity of 28.8 kbit/s (19.2 kbit/s IP link between
Prague and Bansha Bystrica and 9.6 kbit/s Prague-Bratislava).  Another
64 kbit/s link should connect CESNET and SANET to IXI and the future
EMPB.  This line, financed by EC PHARE project for one year, will
connect Prague to Amsterdam. 



Both CESNET and SANET are now setting up national backbone
infrastructures connecting major academic towns in the country.  64
kbit/s lines are used wherever available and considered necessary, 19.2
kbit/s on all other links.  The first protocol supported is IP.  Con
nected to the backbones are appearing metropolitan networks in major
cities. 



The major coordinating bodies are CESNET and SANET where universities as
well as Academy of Sciences, EARN and EUnet are represented.  A good
cooperation exists between both separately funded projects as well as
good cooperation with ACOnet, EARN, EUnet, WIN, INRIA France and others.

 

Contact persons:

o Jaroslav Bobovsky <bobovsky@csearn.bitnet> - SANET

o Gejza Buechler <gejza@mff.uniba.cs> - EUnet backbone manager CS

o Karol Fabian <Karol.Fabian@uakom.cs> - SANET

o Jan Gruntorad <tkjg@csearn.bitnet> - EARN director for Czechoslovakia
& CESNET coordinator

o Vladimir Kassa <kassa@iaccs.cs> - SANET

o Jiri Orsag <ors@vscht.cs> - CS NIC and EUnet Prague

o Peter Pronay <peter@mff.uniba.cs> - president of EUnet Czechoslovakia

o Pavel Rosendorf <prf@csearn.bitnet> - contact for .CS top level domain

o Ivo Smejkal <ivo@vse.cs> - CESNET - user services

o Milan Sterba <Milan.Sterba@vse.cs> - author of this report, CESNET

 2.6 Hungary

Hungary is connected to EARN by a 9.6 kbit/s IP line between Budapest
and Linz (Austria).  For the time being the same line is used also for
the Internet and EUnet connection.  It is planned to upgrade this line
to 64 kbit/s in 1992.  The High Energy Physics community has access to
HEPnet services via a 9.6 kbit/s leased line between Budapest and CERN,
Geneva (Switzerland) which is now running IP. 



Hungary has a good operational public X25 network which is the base of
Wide Area Networking between small and medium sized sites.  Currently
there are about 250 X.25 access points in the country.  A high speed
national IP backbone (called HBONE) will come into production in 1993 to
provide a country wide IP connectivity and access to EBONE services. 



In Hungary a national program under the title "R&D Information Infrastructure 
Program (IIF)" is responsible for the research networking. The "HUNGARNET"  
co-ordinates the networking activities of different user groups, such as 
"HUNINET" (Universities and high schools), "AKANET" (academic research
institutes), and the user group of public collections (libraries,
museums), meanwhile part of the funding goes through IIF. 

 

Contact persons:

o Peter Bakonyi <h25bak@ella.hu> - President of IIF Exec Com. 

o Laszlo Csaba <ib006csa@huearn.bitnet>- EARN director for Hungary

o Piroska Giese <giese@rmk530.rmki.kfki.hu> - HEPnet

o Nandor Horvath <horvath@sztaki.hu> - EUnet backbone manager, domain
contact for HU

o Balazs Martos <martos@sztaki.hu> - HBONE project manager

o Ferenc Telbisz <telbisz@iif.kfki.hu> - HEPnet

o Istvan Tetenyi <ib006tet@huearn.bitnet> - EARN deputy director

o Geza Turchanyi <h2064tur@ella.hu> - HUNGARNET CRIP

o Laszlo Zombory <h340zom@ella.hu>- EARN president, chairman of HUNI-
NET

2.7 Poland

The main external connection consists of a 64 kbit/s satellite link
between Warsaw and Stockholm (Sweden).  The link is an IP one and
carries all Internet, EARN and EUnet traffic.  A new 64 kbit/s IP link
is being set between Warsaw and Vienna with the objective to set up an
Ebone Boundary System in Warsaw.  A 9.6 kbit/s IP connection is in place
between Kracow and CERN, Geneva (Switzerland) for HEPnet services. 



Public X25 services have only started in 1992.  Thus connections at
national level can only be implemented on switched or leased lines.  The
country already has an infrastructure of leased lines, shared between
EARN and IP traffic operating at speeds between 9.6-64 kbit/s. 



The Polish network is coordinated by an organization called NASK
(National Academic and Research Network) which also includes the Polish
part of EARN.  Realistic plans exist to substantially extend IP
connectivity over the territory in 1992 using 64 kbit/s lines on their
national backbones wherever possible and economically viable.  A
National Network Operation and Monitoring Center has been set up in
early 1992 which operates the whole national and international
infrastructure.  A system of network user training and support has also
been put in place. 



Contact persons:

o Daniel J.Bem <bem@plwrtu11.bitnet> - Polish academic network (NASK)

o Jerzy Gorazinski <Gorazi@plearn.bitnet> - Polish State Committee for
Scientific Research

o Krzystof Heller <heller@ii.uj.edu.pl> - contact for PL domain

o Tomasz Hofmokl <fdl50@plearn.bitnet> - EARN director for Poland

o Rafal Pietrak <rafal@fuw.edu.pl>- IP within NASK

o Jerzy Zenkiewicz <jezenk@pltumk.bitnet> - Polish academic network
(NASK)

o Andrzej Zienkiewicz <osk03@plearn.bitnet> - Polish academic network
(NASK)

2.8 Romania

International connectivity is now provided by a switched X25 link to
EARN in Austria.  A 9.6 kbit/s leased line is planned before end 1992
between Bucarest and Linz (Austria).  This line will be able to carry
both IP and EARN/NJE/BSC traffic. 



Romania has poor internal networking infrastructure.  A government
project of building a public X25 network is under commercial
negotiations and should start to offer some serv- ices in 1993. 



In Romania the emerging networking activities seem to be coordinated by
the National Council for Informatics and the Polytechnic Institute of
Bucharest. 



Contact persons:

o Florin Paunescu <florin@imag.fr> - National Council for Informatics

o Paul Dan Cristea <pdcristea@pi-bucuresti.th-darmstadt.de>- Polytech-
nic Institute of Bucharest

2.9 Slovenia

Slovenia is connected over a 64 kbit/s IXI access point in Ljubljana to
the IXI backbone.  Over this connection an IP link via NIKHEF, Amsterdam
(Netherlands) provides Internet connectivity.  A PSDN X25 connection
connects the main EUnet node in Ljubljana to EUnet.  Another IXI access
point, also located in Ljubljana, connects Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina to IXI over the JUPAK PPSDN. 



Currently Slovenia have achieved a good degree of capillarityof their
national networks due to the existence of a wide spread public X25
network.  There exists a well developed X400 service.  In Slovenia the
Academic and Research Network of Slovenia (ARNES) is coordinating
network activities.  In Croatia the coordinating organization is CARNet
and both organizations cooperate. 



Contact persons:

o Leon Mlakar <leon@ninurta.fer.si>- EUnet backbone manager YU

o Borka Jerman-Blazic <jerman-blazic@ijs.si> - YUNAC

o Marko Bonac <marko.bonac@ijs.si> - ARNES Executive Director

o Denis Trcek <denis.trcek@ijs.si> - IJSE5net - J.Stefan Institute

2.10 Serbia and Montenegro

Serbia has had a 9.6 kbit/s leased line between Beograd and Linz to
carry EARN traffic.  Currently this line is cut according to a decision
of the Austrian government about the UN embargo of new Yugoslavia. 



Contact persons:

o Jagos Puric <xpmfd01@yubgss21.bitnet> - EARN director for YU

2.11 Macedonia

The University of Skopje, Macedonia was recently appointed by the
Ministry for Science and Technology to start the networking activities
in the country.  They joined CEEC and they are planning soon an IP
connection. 



Currently Macedonia have achieved a good degree of capillarity of their 
national network (DECNET) due to the existence of the public X25 network 
which is a part of JUPAK PPSDN. 



Contact persons:

o Marjan Gusev <pmfmarj%nubsk@uni-lj.ac.mail.yu> or <gusev@lut.ac.uk>

o Faculty for Natural Sciences, Gazibaba, Skopje

o Aspazija Hadzisce <rkntriasp%nubsk@uni-lj.ac.mail.yu>

o Ministry for Science and Technology, Skopje

3. Evolution

All the ECE countries are very interested in European as well as world
wide IP connectivity.  In Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland there has
been rapid growth of connected IP networks and hosts in the academic
community.  Their existing international leased lines infrastructure is
now shared by EARN, EUnet and raw IP services.  Linz University and
ACONET in general (Austria) has become an important concentrating point
for Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary as well as Poland and Romania. 



The financial resources dedicated to networking in these countries are
limited.  The sharing of the existing national and international leased
lines between EARN, EUnet and other IP traffic as well as between
academic and starting commercial traffic is thus a very important issue.
Lightweight but robust IP gateway solutions (over dial-up lines, leased
serial lines or X25 networks) are of great concern in this respect and
are continuously studied and further developed (e.g.  COPERNICUS). 



By the end of this year the Budapest-ACONET link at least will be
operating at 64 kbit/s.  It is probable that new IP lines will be
operational at this time (Bratislava-Vienna, Moskow- Amsterdam). 



In the same time the national infrastructure of the countries will also
evolve.  We can expect an increase in national coverage in countries
with working public X25 networks and in Czechoslovakia and Poland as
well as strong increase in IP connectivity in the CIS. 

4. International Initiatives

Several international support initiatives have been launched in the past 
by different bodies to improve international network connectivity of the 
Central and Eastern European countries.  The following list presents some 
of them:



The Ebone 92 consortium has shown itself very supportive during 1992 by
allowing traffic of ECE countries to pass freely over the Ebone and
letting so the ECE countries traffic cross Europe.  This situation will
change in 1993 when Ebone will use a more formal financial model. 



RIPE and the RIPE NCC have widely contributed to the rapid integration
of new ECE networks into the global Internet.  RIPE has acted as an
initiator of a common coordination effort of academic networking
organizations in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland.  A first

coordination meeting has been held in Prague in february 1992 and a
successful cooperation has started since, continued on 3rd Joint
European Networking Conference in Innsbruck, where RARE has proposed
to be the coordinating place on ECE integration to european academic
networking and another meeting in Prague in August.  CEEC@RARE.NL is
now the focusing mailing list on common ECE networking issues. 



Also both EARN and EUnet have widely contributed to the successful start
of international networking in ECE countries, by placing the first
network nodes to these countries, supporting the activity of these
nodes both financially and by extensive knowhow transfer. 



Despite this expressed cooperation willingness (RARE, RIPE, EARN, EUnet
etc.) we can see uncoordinated support efforts which sometimes lead to
wasting of poor disposable resources.  An EC PHARE project dedicated to
extend the former COSINE IXI project to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Poland and Romania has started this year.  Medium speed 64
kbit/s lines have been ordered between Amsterdam-Prague-Budapest-Bern
and between Aarhus-Warsaw-Bern.  These lines initially financed by the
EC should provide connectivity from ECE countries to the planned
European Multiprotocol Backbone (EMPB). It should provide access points 
to X25 as well as IP services. Unfortunately the coordination with RIPE 
and Ebone as well as with the academic networking organizations in the 
countries involved has been up to now very poor resulting in uncoordinated 
doubling of parts of the scarce infrastructure in ECE countries. 



Austria is the major relay point between ECE countries and Western
Europe (and further).  The Austrian government is very supportive and
either covers fully or participates in a sig- nificant manner to costs
of international connections to these countries.  In february 1992
ACONET has made an even larger proposal, offering these countries
(Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland) double connectivity to
both Vienna and Linz.  Each of these countries should have one link to
both places, thus permitting line backup.  The Vienna-CERN line has
been upgraded in october 1992 to 256 kbit/s and the Linz-CERN line (64
kbit/s) is being replaced by a Linz-Amsterdam line (128 kbit/s) in order
to accommodate traffic increase from these countries and offer a real
backed-up connectivity to Ebone.  The ACONET proposal for Ebone 93 to
place an EBS to Austria seems well justified from the point of view of
ECE countries connectivity. 



CERN plays also an important role in the IP connectivity of the new
countries.  It houses actually a 9.6 kbit/s line from Krakow and another
HEPnet 9.6 kbit/s line from Budapest.  Due to lack of resources CERN
prefers not to house a lot of low rate lines from every country but
rather to house a higher rate line concentrating traffic from several
countries.  This is in fact in perfect conformance with the ACONET
proposal. 



The German DFN network has launched several regional initiatives to
connect sites in geographical proximity of Germany (e.g.  Dreilaendereck
project connecting Liberec in Czechoslovakia, Wroclaw in Poland and
Zittau in Germany using leased links based on X25 with further
connectivity to DFN).  DFN also provides X400/SMTP gateway for Slove-
nia. 



The Italian government has financed in 1990 and 1992 successful network
workshops (NetSchool) to which about 50 network specialists from ECE 
countries have attended.   A second extended edition of NetSchool has 
taken place in April 1992 with participation of network specialists from 
RIPE and attendees from ECE countries, some South American, Asian and 
African countries. 



A similar event has been organized by NORDUnet for network users and
operators from the Baltic states. 



The French government has expressed its willingness to help the
integration of new countries to the world of academic networking by
launching in cooperation with INRIA a project called Copernicus, which
aims to improve network connectivity of several Eastern European
Countries.  One of the first results of this project has been the
cooperation on design and implementation of the academic IP backbone
CESNET-SANET (Prague - Brno - Bratislava, Banska Bystrica - Kosice) in
Czechoslovakia.  The project consists of network management and
administration know-how transfer, common development of tools and some
software and hardware donations.  A similar activity is now starting
with Romania. 



IBM is also present in these countries with its academic initiative in
which IBM mainframes have been offered to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and
Poland.  IBM and EASInet act also as sponsors for the T1 US link usage
for academic networks in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. 

Strong support to ECE countries integration into the global network also
comes from the United states.  NSF has always been very supportive to
academic networks in ECE countries promptly helping them to solve the
global connectivity problems.  Many projects aiming at improving
local, national and international infrastructure, knowhow transfer and
mission oriented network applications are now in progress. 



The assistance of countries with developed networking shouldn't be
uniquely oriented to basic network connectivity.  A lot of work is to be
done in the ECE countries to offer and improve higher level network
services like e-mail, teleconferencing, archive services, online
databases and library catalogues etc., as well as in basic network
concepts, user information services and advanced networking know-how
transfer.  That's why new EC projects proposals are now oriented not
only on infrastructure but also on higher level services (e-mail,
electronic directory, user information and training).  Lack of funds is
extremely disadvantageous and the exchange rates still make it difficult
for ECE network experts to attend international network events. 

5. Technical issues

As already mentioned, distributing international network access over the
local territory is a major problem for the countries considered.  While
it is relatively easy and cheap to set up a local TCP/IP network it is
more difficult to connect it to the national access point.  Generic
router solutions are rather expensive on one side and not completely
free of administrative exportation problems for all countries involved. 



The solution to these problems are software routers based on PC's or
workstations and public domain or easily available software. 



A low cost capillarity of networks being of great importance to ECE
countries, good dial-up IP solutions both industrial and public domain,
which are under study and evaluation in EUnet, RIPE, Copernique,
NetSchool and others, are of great interest as well as low cost IP
solutions on synchronous lines (X25 or PPP) and low cost solutions for
network monitoring and management. 



The technical speed limitations for international leased lines seem now
to become less restrictive than in the past.  For Czechoslovakia,
Hungary and Poland, international links up to 2 Mbit/s are now feasible.



With the basic connectivity problems being progressively solved the
network services are now becoming major issues in the most advanced ECE
countries.  PC's remain the most spread technical basis, thus network
solutions based on this platform (routers, mail, news, archive and
information servers and clients) either Unix or MS DOS oriented are of
major concern today. 

6. Organizational issues

The starting period in international networking is often characterized
by a fuzziness in the organizational structure together with a lack of
information about the people actually responsible and working in the
area.  The situation is nearly stabilized in Croatia, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Poland and Slovenia, where national academic networking groups
have been founded and are coordinated with EARN/EUnet activities, and a
coordinated effort tends to build nation wide multiprotocol academic
network infrastructures.  A similar effort is underway in Bulgaria
(UNIKOM, EARN and EUnet Bulgaria).  These countries seem also to have
found a stabilized position in international network organizations
(EARN, EUnet, RARE, RIPE). The situation is more complicated in other countries where also international contacts are for various reasons much more scarce. 


