Subject: IDRC Reports - july 1997

Hi everyone,

Here is the ASCII versions of this week's IDRC Reports feature on PAN 
Mongolia. The web version can be found at 
http://www.idrc.ca/books/reports/1996/36-01e.htmll

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Resume: In January 1996, the first permanent Internet connection in 
Mongolia was launched by
Datacom, a Mongolian telecommunications company, with help from IDRC's Pan 
Asian
Networking (PAN) program.

The PAN Mongolia Experience
If you were to pick a country least likely to join the global 
communications network a few years
ago, Mongolia would have been an easy choice. With deteriorating or 
non-existent
infrastructure, a tightly controlled media, and a one-party state political 
system, the country was
isolated from much of the world. Yet today Mongolia is embracing the 
Internet and its free-flow
of information as quickly as its fragile economy will allow. This despite a 
severe lack of
finances and an outdated telecommunications system.
Mongolia's first Internet host was born when local software and networking 
company Datacom
was assisted through IDRC's Pan Asia Networking program. The PAN program 
aims to fund
communications infrastructure and research projects in developing countries 
across Asia. In
turn, this infrastructure can enable content-based subnetworks in line with 
the centre's research
priorities and allow individuals, development institutions, and other 
organizations to share
information.
From that first partnership, which resulted in a low-cost dial-up Internet 
connection in 1994, has
evolved a dedicated satellite connection providing full Internet access. 
More importantly, it has
provided the technical infrastructure necessary for other technical and 
content programs. Today,
users include the Prime Minister through to people in remote areas, 
development agencies,
universities, and the new businesses of a fledgling market economy.
Mongolia's transition to a market system has not been easy. When the Soviet 
Union collapsed in
1991, so too did many of the subsidies and trade that had been underpinning 
its economy.
According to Surenguin Badral, the foreign policy adviser to the Prime 
Minister, one of the
central tasks of the new government is to reduce its spending and at the 
same time improve
infrastructure. However, with limited funds and many priorities, including 
the provision of basic
services such as electricity to remote areas, the task is long-term. Says 
Badral, "In this way the
Internet network that the country is starting to build up is most important 
in terms of first of all
reducing costs and secondly communicating with the country people and 
getting information
from remote places."
When Datacom, a former state-owned enterprise, first had the idea to start 
an Internet service,
lack of funds was the major stumbling block. Datacom's director-general, Dr 
Dangaasuren
Enkhbat, says that without IDRC's offer of technical and financial 
assistance, the project would
not have been possible. Just as important, he says, is that it provided an 
example to other
organizations of what was possible and a technical base for developing 
other projects.
Mongolia was the first site chosen in the PAN program. In this regard, the 
PAN-Mongolia
project can be seen as a pilot to assess how assistance might also be 
offered to other developing
countries in the region. The country was chosen for a number of reasons. 
Having only recently
made the transition to a market economy, it is in desperate need of 
information from the rest of
the world and ready to re-forge links with neighbouring countries. Datacom, 
the only domestic
provider of data communications services, also had a team that could 
undertake the demanding
technical requirements needed to become an Internet provider. And as a 
remote country without
Internet access, it offered a chance to study the technical challenges that 
would be applicable to
other countries in the region.
Paul Wilson, a consultant from Australian-based networking company Pegasus 
Networks, was
involved in the project as a technical advisor in the preliminary stages. 
He was impressed by the
technical capabilities at Datacom at the time and, as a result, the 
likelihood of success. As he
notes, "they were clearly out there and ready." 
However, he also points out that the conditions that they had to work with 
were poor, although
similar to many other developing countries in Asia. Problems included 
unreliable telephone
lines, telephone exchanges based on non-standard and outdated Russian 
technology, erratic
power, and few computers. However, even at this early stage, Datacom had 
built up its own
messaging system, adapted from Russian software, which was robust enough to 
cope with the
conditions. According to Wilson, the system, called PC-Mail, was based on a 
file transfer model
and seemed very reliable as well as accommodating Mongolia's Cyrillic-based 
script. "It was
quite an achievement that the PC-Mail system was all local development. 
They also had a clear
awareness that they could adapt it to UUCP protocols," he says, referring 
to the Unix-based
program that can be used for transferring files on the Internet.
This occurred in late 1994, when Datacom installed a dial-up gateway system 
based on UUCP
protocols that allowed for the connection of its domestic system to the 
Internet. The system was
compatible with Internet email and newsgroups, and initially these were 
transferred twice
weekly by connecting to the Institute of Global Communications (IGC) in the 
US. As the system
gained new users, the dial-up frequency was increased. However, Datacom's 
goal was to have a
permanent Internet connection.
The most economical and feasible connection turned out to be via satellite. 
A meeting with
Sprint concluded in an agreement to cooperate on a 128k leased line 
satellite link via PanAmSat
2. Funding for the link came from a government loan and the US National 
Science Foundation
(NSF), which agreed to pay the leasing costs if Datacom would give 
Mongolia's educational
institutions free Internet access during 1996/7. Satellite communications 
equipment from
Comstream was installed in late 1995, along with a Sun Netra server and Sun 
workstation to host
Web, FTP, and Gopher servers, culminating in the opening ceremony for the 
country's first
permanent Internet connection in January and a Mongolian web site in March 
of 1996.
Its Internet infrastructure is far from perfect, but nevertheless Mongolia 
has improved its
communications capability dramatically in just two years. So much so that 
it has attracted the
attention of other developing countries facing similar problems. However, 
Datacom head Dr
Enkhbat is realistic about the task ahead, likening the current situation 
to having only one foot
on the ground. Two feet, he claims, will be when local content begins to 
appear from various
sectors of the community. Already, though, he is thinking of how to start 
some sort of
multimedia centre capable of developing such material. 
Even with its first Internet node in place, Mongolia still has a lot of 
work ahead of it. As Dr
Enkhbat comments, perhaps the hardest task is now to create a local 
infrastructure to spread the
benefits of Internet to the wider community. However, the early signs are 
encouraging and there
are a number of projects in progress aiming to build on the PAN Mongolian 
groundwork.
Geoff Long is a freelance journalist reporting from Asia.

Resource Person:
Dr Dangaasuren Enkhbat, Director-General, Datacom Co., Ltd (Data 
Communications Systems
Company Limited), POB-385, Central Post Office, Ulanbaatar-13, Mongolia. 
Tel: (976 1)
32-02-10. Fax: (976-1) 32-02-10. Email: enkhbat@magicnet.mn

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