From hungary-online-owner Sun Apr 9 16:11:36 1995 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id QAA13566 for hungary-online-out31415; Sun, 9 Apr 1995 16:11:36 -0700 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id QAA13557; Sun, 9 Apr 1995 16:11:24 -0700 Received: from <@sztaki.hu:colin.woodard@magnet.hu> () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hungary-online@hungary.yak.net (13555) Received: from sztaki.hu (sztaki.hu [192.84.225.1]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id QAA13552 for ; Sun, 9 Apr 1995 16:11:05 -0700 Received: by sztaki.hu with UUCP (5.67a8/SZTAKI-3.13) id Fh08432; Mon, 10 Apr 1995 01:07:35 +0200 Received: by magnet.hu (wcGATE v4) id 30114W Sun, 9 Apr 1995 23:00:09 GMT From: colin.woodard@magnet.hu (Colin Woodard) Subject: (HOL) Internet-related story te Date: Sun, 9 Apr 1995 16:43:00 GMT Message-Id: <95041001000916803@magnet.hu> Organization: MagNet ExPat BBS To: hungary-online@hungary.yak.net X-Charset: US X-Char-Esc: 0 Sender: owner-Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net HOL Dwellers: Steve-bacsi asked if I'd post the text to this article on the Internet backbone here in Hungary, a version of which appeared recently in Budapest Week. Expert comment/critique welcome in my e-mail box. I'll post an expanded version for The Chronicle of Higher Education once it appears. - Colin The Internet in Hungary: national network ponders commercial policy By Colin Woodard Once upon a time, there was no Internet in Eastern Europe. COCOM trade restrictions denied the region the computer hardware they needed to connect with the European information networks. Everyone but the Hungarians, that is, who in 1986 built their own x.25 exchange and strung a cable to neighboring Vienna, connecting the country's universities and research institutes with those in the west. With the demise of COCOM, the Internet is spreading rapidly across the region, and in Hungary, access is approaching that of most west European countries. The collection of information networks known as the Internet has seen explosive growth everywhere, but its expansion in the former Socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe has been particularly staggering. In the fist six months of last year, the number of hosts connected to the Internet - the basic measurement of Internet size - grew by 81% world-wide, according to the Internet Society. But over the same six month period, the Internet Society registered an increase of 122% in Hungary, 169% in the Czech Republic, 466% in Romania, and by nearly 1000% in the Russian Federation. "We knew it would grow, but nobody knew it would grow so quickly," says Janos Bajza, who maintains the backbone of the Hungarian national network from the offices of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Computer and Automation Research Institute (SZTAKI). "With the traffic constantly increasing it's been a real race to increase the capacity of the system to meet demand." SZTAKI, which maintains the public-sector network, calculates that the number of hosts in Hungary has increased from around 900 in early 1993 to over 6000 by the middle of last year. The number of public sector users is now estimated at nearly 30,000, with thousands more connected by commercial providers such as CompuServe, EUNet, Odin, and Magnet. "Interest in electronic mail is increasing quickly," says Fred Leber, whose Magnet dial-in electronic mail service is growing by 50% a month. "I think the demand and utility of electronic communications is greater than the demand for on-line Internet features, which are much more expensive to access." Now many involved in information technology believe Hungary is about to see a second explosion, as private sector interest in electronic mail and other Internet services begins to grow. "The number of users is growing very large, very fast and the rate of growth is still increasing," says Tamas Maray, who teaches computer science at Budapest Technical University. "All the non-profit institutions are already connected to the Internet. Now we're going to see companies starting to connect. Many people expect there will be a big boom, as many companies are just starting to discover the possibilities. This second boom could have positive or negative consequences for the national network." Managers of the Information Infrastructure Project (mysteriously abbreviated IIF) are currently divided on how the issue of commercial access. Some believe that the network should encourage the development of commercial service ventures, which could provide a valuable source of development funds to maintain and expand the national network. Others believe that the IIF- maintained backbones and four high-speed international access lines should be reserved for the non-profit, public sector institutions for which it was built, in order to reduce the already enormous pressures to increase international transmission capacity and to upgrade leased-line connections in the countryside. "At the end of 1994 we decided to open the gates a bit and look for new users and applications," says Hungarian Academy of Sciences Senior Councilor Lajos Balint, a leading member of the IIF secretariat. "Our primary priority is to provide services for our closed circle of state universities, colleges, research institutes, museums, and libraries. The big concern within IIF is that commercial ventures might distract resources and manpower from these primary customers." SZTAKI provides electronic mail and dial-up online Internet services under the mantle of EUNet Hungary, which provides access to a large number of international foundations, businesses, and individuals. Magnet, operated by Leber's Ex Pat Bt., connects through EUNet to the IIF-funded backbone. Compuserve and ODIN, on the other hand, maintain their own international connections. Expansion helps universities The universities increasingly rely on inexpensive, state- supported access to the national and international networks. East European universities are doing their best to forge international ties and to integrate with West European associations and structures, but attempts are frustrated by severely limited finances, increased travel costs, and extremely poor telecommunications infrastructure. The Internet has become an important tool to make up for the shortage of resources. "It can be extremely difficult to place a long-distance or an international call, and the phone charges are so expensive it really limits our ability to communicate," says Peter Hanak of the Budapest Technical University's computer science department. "E-mail is already the preferred method of communication here. Because of the shortcomings of our telecoms, the Internet is probably even more important here than in the west." Currently it costs the equivalent of $2.3 million a year for IIF to maintain service and international connections for the entire national network. With at least 25,000 supported public-sector users, that works out to under $100 per user. "For the price of a single technical textbook, we can provide access to all the possibilities of the Internet," Mr. Balint says. "Compare the cost of e-mail to faxes or sending letters by air mail -- the cost-to-performance ratio is impressively good." Commercial users are realizing this as well. Mr. Leber says many of Magnet's 300 subscribers are cost-sensitive foreign residents, with missionaries forming the largest single group. Foreign journalists, newspapers, consultants, law firms, and graduate students are also among the most common users. The Technical University's Mr. Hanak is coordinating a project to connect 30-40 Hungarian secondary schools to the national network by stringing cable to nearby universities and colleges, or providing dial-in nodes. But now that more-and-more users are gaining access to the national network, the greatest battle is to increase the bandwidth (data capacity) of the international connections which link the Hungarian network to Internet hubs in western Europe. Currently there are four 64,000 bps leased-line connections linking mainframes at SZTAKI and the Technical University with hubs in Vienna and Amsterdam. "Narrow bandwidth is leading to bottlenecks in our access to the international networks, and we're starting to see a near saturation of capacity," says Mr. Balint. "You'll never realize total saturation because as you start approaching that pint the users stop using the services because access is slower and use is more difficult." While there is a high-speed (100 Mbps) loop connecting the Technical, Economic, and Eotvos Lorand Universities with SZTAKI, and 9600 to 2Mbps trunk connections to Godolo, Miskolc, Debrecen, Szeged, Veszprem and Pecs, access to other cities is restricted to low-bandwidth or dial-in connections. --- * CMPQwk #1.4* UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY ############# # This message to Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net # was from colin.woodard@magnet.hu (Colin Woodard) # # To unsubscribe, # send "unsubscribe" to # An announcement-only subscription (less volume) is available # at # Send mail to for more information, # or to if you need human assistance. #############