The Digital Divide inside European Research and Education

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The Digital Divide insideEuropean Research and
Education
David Williams Second Round Table on Developing
Country Access to Scientific Knowledge ICTP,
Trieste 23 October 2003
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Why me?

• My main job is the coordination of relations
  between CERN and the institutions of the European
  Union
• especially Commission, but also e.g. Parliament
• I have a long-term professional interest in IT
  and networking
• From 1999 until May 2003 I was president of
  TERENA, the association of national research and
  education networks (NRENs) in Europe
• I am leading an FP5-funded project, called
  SERENATE (see http//www.serenate.org/) which is
  just in the final stages of completing its report
  on the medium-term (5-10 year) strategy for
  European research and education networks

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SERENATEand theDIGITAL DIVIDE inside EUROPE
This work was led by Marko Bonac, the head of
the Slovenian NREN. He unfortunately cannot be
here, but agreed that I can use some of his
slides.
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SERENATE findings on geographic issues

• Marko Bonac
• ARNES
• bonac_at_arnes.si

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Report identifying issues related to the
geographic coverage of European research and
education networking

• The Report will
• review the digital divide in research networking
  provision in Europe and
• provide some recommendations on how this divide
  could be closed.
• Sources of information are
• answers to the special questionnaire sent to all
  eastern European NRENs
• several meetings with eastern European NRENs
• TERENA Compendium 2003
• Marko Bonac (Arnes) and John Martin (ENPG) are
  working on the Report. Any additional input is
  welcome.

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NRENs from eastern Europe

• Albania (ANA)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIHARNET)
• Bulgaria (ICT)
• Croatia (CARNet)
• Cyprus (CYNET)
• Czech Republic (CESNET)
• Estonia (EENet)
• Hungary (HUNGARNET)
• Latvia (LATNET, LANET)

• Lithuania (LITNET)
• Macedonia, FYR (MARNet)
• Malta (CSC)
• Poland (PSNC)
• Romania (RoEduNet, RNC)
• Serbia and Montenegro (AMREJ)
• Slovak Republic (SANET)
• Slovenia (Arnes)
• Turkey (ULAKBIM)

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Data illustrating the digital divide
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GÉANT (January 2003)
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High speed University connections
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Findings and recommendations

• Digital Divide exists
• The depth of the digital divide varies very
  greatly from country to country
• There are four countries in eastern Europe with a
  high overall standard of research networking.
  Reasons include
• Good support for research networking at
  government level
• Access to dark fibre where/when necessary
• History of participation in joint European
  projects
• The majority of countries fall very far behind
  those in western Europe
• The consequences of this digital divide are
  serious
• Those countries without an adequate research
  network will suffer from research exclusion

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Findings and recommendations

• Access to dark fibre is vital
• Access to dark fibre enables the NRENs in small
  eastern European countries to upgrade the
  capacity of the backbone and access links one
  hundred-fold without spending much more on the
  infrastructure
• At the present moment this is the main step which
  could be taken to close the digital divide.
• It seems that in most eastern European countries
  the fibre is already laid.
• In countries with a liberalized telecommunication
  market it is not difficult to get the fibre.
• There are encouraging examples that this was also
  done in the countries with monopoly in
  telecommunications
• Could the EC make recommendations in this
  respect? _

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Findings and recommendations

• The case for research networks still needs to be
  made
• Lack of awareness of the importance of research
  networking / at government level as well as at
  academic level / is a matter of concern
• Sometimes it is supposed that the ordinary
  Internet will solve the problem. Not every one
  recognizes that without high capacity research
  network research exclusion is inevitable.
• Problems are also known to exist where
• the NREN is not formally established as an
  independent body or
• where there are several NRENs with indistinct
  responsibilities and without necessarily economy
  of scale

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Summary

• Digital divide in research networking provision
  exists
• The depth of the digital divide varies very
  greatly from country to country.
• The digital divide between most developed and
  least developed countries is getting bigger.
• If uncorrected, will prevent the goal of equal
  opportunity for researchers.
• Access to dark fibre is vital
• Awareness of the importance of research
  networking at government level is important.
• Participation in joint projects is very valuable.
• Could the European Commission and TERENA do more
  to close the digital divide ?

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Some personal comments

• I think that the digital divide issue is actually
  very important for the future stability of the
  world
• I think that it will be very difficult to fix
• Some of it is finding the right technologies for
  different areas
• But a lot is about the structure of society
  reliable electrical power, government
  transparency, support for education and
  scientific research and while the developed
  countries can help, the real directions can only
  be determined in the developing world
• But you need to understand that removing the
  digital divide is shooting at a moving target.
  Internet use has only just started and
  technological progress will move the goalposts
  (raise the bar) a lot in the next 2-3-5 years.

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What might help?

• Scientists have to sell their ideas to
  politicians and to society in general
• Creating a National Research and Education
  Network does help the power of acting together
• High costs of connectivity are a killer Europe
  suffered from that a lot from the early 80s to
  the late 90s
• GEANT communications 30 M ? 5 M
• Try to work very hard to obtain access to an
  optical fibre backbone
• EU-25 has regulated that
• Poland and Czech Republic built/leased their own
• Serbia fixed the issue

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THE END