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Information Societies Technology (IST) Programme South-Eastern European Research & Education Networking

(SEEREN)

Contract No IST-2001-38830

Deliverable 15

SEEREN Workshop

Author(s): V. Cavalli (editor)

Status –Version: Final – e

Date: March 31, 2004

Distribution - Type: Public - Report

Code: SEEREN-WP5-TERENA-003-D15workshop-e-2004-03-31.doc

Abstract: SEEREN Deliverable 15 is a report on the "SEEREN Workshop: Policy Issues for NRENs in South East Europe" organized in collaboration with TERENA, the ICT Development Agency of Bulgaria and CEENet. The Workshop, which was held in Varna, Bulgaria on 7-9 September 2003, was possible thanks to a grant from the “NATO Security Through Science Programme”.

© Copyright by the SEEREN Consortium

The SEEREN Consortium consists of: GRNET Prime Contractor Greece HUNGARNET/NIIFI Contractor Hungary RoEduNet Contractor Romania DANTE Contractor UK TERENA Contractor Netherlands INIMA Subcontractor Albania BIHARNET Subcontractor Bosnia-Herzegovina ICTDA/ISTF Subcontractor Bulgaria MARNET Subcontractor FYROM AMREJ Subcontractor FYR

D15 – SEEREN Workshop of 35

This document contains material, which is the copyright of certain SEEREN contractors and the EC, may not

ned in this document may require a license from the proprietor of

not warrant that the information contained in the report is capable of use, or that use of the information is free from risk, and accept no liability for loss or damage suffered by any person using this information.

be reproduced or copied without permission.

The commercial use of any information contaithat information.

The contractors do

SEEREN-WP5-TERENA-003-D15workshop-e-2004-03-31.doc © SEEREN consortium


Document Revision History

Date Issue Author/Editor/Contributor Summary of main changes

December 03, 2003 a Valentino Cavalli First draft with rough information for approval of deliverable structure by the coordinator

March 19, 2004 b Valentino Cavalli First complete draft distributed to the coordinator and to SEEREN beneficiary NRENs for comment and integrations

March 29 c Valentino Cavalli Incorporated comments from N. Frasheri, A. Vukovic and J. Sanchez. Completion and full revision of the deliverable.

March 31 d Valentino Cavalli Final version to the Coordinator

March 31 e Jorge-A. Sanchez-P. (coordinator)

Final version to the EC



Preface

S N is expected to e an s an al Research an ucation Networks Euro igital d ost of the S e rest of the r, the project p nd educational communities of EU member states with the SE Europea dissemination and development of next generation Internet technolo states that are on course to joi involves t ion Net na, B Mac nia, Gre ania, Serbia- Montenegro, as well as TERENA and DANTE.

T jectives of t SEEREN

1. Establish the South-East European (SEE) infrastructure inter nd Education Networks (NRENs) of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro, Greece, Hungary and Romania (called regional NRE

2 nect the reg al NRE ANT Points of thus to the Pan-European research network. The major GÉANT PoPs in the region are located in Athens, Budapest, Bucharest, Ljubljana, Zagreb and Vi

3 e stable eration cture an ANT;

4. Serve as a guide for future upgrades, so that all regional NRENs will be able to participate in GÉANT and be part of the European "e-Science" distributed platform;

5. Ease the "digital divide" that still separates most of the SEE countries from the rest of the continent. Build awareness of IST in SE Europe non-EU countries and serve as a paradigm for bridging the digital divide in other areas. Provide a platform for cooperation of scientific and educational communities of EU Member States with Newly Associated States (NAS) and 3rd Countries.

6. Investigate additional sources of funding from the EC, from EU States national funds and international organizations that are actively involved in the SEE region, such as UNESCO, NATO, CEENet, UNDP, World Bank, USAID.

The expected key results of the project are: 1. NRENs requirements collected and analyzed

2. Technical and operational requirements analyzed

3. Promotional package available

4. Tenders prepared

5. Suppliers selected

6. Connectivity, equipment and network management contracts signed

7. Final SEEREN topology determined

8. Operation of the regional networking infrastructure offering to all NRENs GÉANT visibility starts

9. Stable network operation accomplished

10. SEEREN workshop proceedings ready

The SEEREN project has started its activities on December 2002 and is planned to be completed by the end of June 2004. It is led by Dr. Jorge-A. Sanchez-P. of GRNET. Five contractors (GRNET, HUNGARNET-NIIFI, RoEduNet, DANTE and TERENA) and five subcontractors (INIMA, BIHARNET, ICTDA, MARNET, AMREJ) participate in the project. The total budget is 1 297 481 Euro. The project is funded by the European Commission's Fifth Framework Programme for Research & Technological Development (IST Programme).

EEREd Ed

upgrad of SE

d integrate the Internet servicepe, in an attempt to ease the "d

d infrastructure of the Nationivide" that still separates m

EE countries from th continent. Moreove romotes the cooperation of scientific an countries and provides a platform for

gies in those ning the EU. The project

ulgaria, FYR ofhe Research and Educat

ece, Hungary, Romworks of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovi

edo

he main ob he project are to:

connecting the National Research aBulgaria, FYR of Macedonia, SerbiaNs);

. Intercon ion Ns to the major GÉ Presence (PoPs) in this area and

enna;

of the networking infrastru. Guarantee th op d interoperability with GÉ



The Project issued the following deliverables:

N project handbook WP1 Report Restricted 1/1/2003

t progress report WP1 Report Restricted 15/3/2003

06a SEEREN project presentation WP5 Presentation Public 1/4/2003

WP1 Report Restricted 1/4/2003

D08


/7/2003

D10 5 Report Public 1/9/2003

D13

R port R stricted 15/9/2003

D12 4 Report Restricted 1/10/2003

12b Implementation and acceptance tests WP4 Network Restricted 1/1/2004

ance WP4 Report Restricted 1/2/2004

WP5 Conference Pubilic 1/4/2004

d verables:


ort WP1 Report Restricted 15/3/2004

ort Public 1/6/2004

te) WP1 Report Restricted 1/6/2004

6/2004

WP5 Report Public 1/6/2004

W 1 R port Restricted 15/6/2004

Assessment and evaluation of final results WP3 Report Internal 15/6/2004

D01a SEERE

D02 SEEREN Web/FTP site WP5 Internet site Public 1/2/2003

SEEREN project notebook WP1 Working doc. Internal 1/2/2003

D03 Market analysis and requirements for SEEREN WP2 Report Public 1/3/2003

D04 SEEREN training workshop WP5 Event Internal 1/3/2003

D05a SEEREN project brochure WP5 Brochure Public 1/3/2003

1s

D

D07 Contractual relationships for SEEREN

Measure of success rules WP5 Report Internal 1/4/2003

Networking topology options and implem. approaches


D09a Call for connectivity and equipment tender WP3 Report Public 1/6/2003

2nd progress report

D09b Connectivity and equipment tender WP3 Report Public 1

D09c Connectivity and equipment suppliers responses WP3 Report Public 1/8/2003

SEEREN topology WP

3rd progress report WP1 Report Restricted 15/9/2003

1st period progress report WP1 Report Restricted 15/9/2003

1st period integrated cost statement WP1 e e

D11 SEEREN use policy WP1 Report Public 1/10/2003

a Specification of acceptance tests WP

D

D14 SEEREN configuration and perform

D15 SEEREN workshop

An plans to issue the following deli

4th progress report

5th progress rep

D16 SEEREN liaison activities and future plans WP5 Rep

D01b SEEREN project handbook (upda

D02b Project presentation (update) WP5 Presentation Public 1/

D05b SEEREN project brochure

6th progress report P e

Final integrated cost statement WP1 Report Restricted 15/6/2004

D17 Final progress report WP1 Report Public 15/6/2004



Tabl

Introduction

o .... ...... .............. ..........

o .................................. ...... ............... ........

Co op ............................................ ...... .............. ....

portant? ..................................................................................cation networking i egio ..... ..........

. .................. ...... .............. ....4.4. tional initiatives in the region4.5. l Divide in the region .... ...... .............. ........

. ...... .............. ....

5. Conclusions and recommendations ......................................................................................................... 27 ........... ...... .............. ..........

Workshop Organising Committee .................................... ...... .............. ....rkshop directors s ........................ ...... .............. ..........r .. ...... .............. ..........

..................................

e of contents

1. ............................................................................................................................................... 11

2. W rkshop objectives............................................... ........... ............. ............. ........... 12

3. W rkshop preparation ............. ........... ............ ............... ........... 13

4. ntent of the worksh ........... ............. ................... ........... 14 4.1.4.2.

What are NRENs and why are they imThe status of research and edu

14 ........... 16 n the r n ................... .............

4.3 Telecommunications markets.............. ........... ............. ................... ........... 19 EU/NATO projects and other internaHow to reduce the Digita

................................................................

21 ........... 24 ........... ...............

4.6 Government support......................................................... ............. ................... ........... 25

5.2. Varna conclusions and recommendations .. ........... ............. ............. ........... 28 ........... ............. ................... ........... 33

WoKey

.............................................................................................................peakers .............................................

.........................................

33 ........... 34 ........... .............

Othe Participants............................................................ ........... ............. ............. ........... 35 Apologies ...................................................................................................................... 35



List of tables

Tab e 1: Types of users connected by NRENs ________________________________________________ 14 l



Abbreviations

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

R Access Router

ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode

BES Best-Effort Service

BGP Border Gateway Protocol

BR Border Router

DiffServ Differentiated Service

ED Edge Device

HFC Hybrid Fiber Coaxial

HPM Highest Priority Match

IP Internet Protocol IntServ Integrated Services ISP Internet Service Provider - Instruction-Set Processor

LAN Local Area network

MMF Multi-Mode Fiber

MPLS Multi-Protocol Label Switching

NIC Network Interface Card

PON Passive Optical Network

POP Point of Presence

SDH Synchronous Digital Hierarchy

SLA Service Level Agreements

SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol

SONET Synchronous Optical Network

TCP Transmission Control Protocol

UNI User-Network Interface

UTP Unshielded twisted Pair

VLAN Virtual LAN

WAN Wide Area Network

WDM Wavelength Division Multiplexing

AD Access Device

ADSL

A



References

[1] SEEREN South-Eastern European Research and Education Networking, Annex I-ptio 01-38830, November 2002.

SEEREN 01-SEEREN project handbook”, January 2003.

SEEREN eb/ftp site”, January 2003.

SEEREN arket Analysis and Requirements for SEEREN”, February 2003.

SEEREN N Workshop”, February 2003.

SEEREN 5- SEEREN Brochure”, February 2003.

REN REN Presentation”, March 2003.

SEEREN D07- SEEREN Contractual Relationships”, March 2003.

SEEREN EREN Networking topology options and implementation approaches”, April 2003.

SEEREN C EN Topology”, September 2003.

SEEREN C EN Use Policy”, October 2003.

EREN pecification of Acceptance Tests”, October 2003.

SEEREN ests”, January 2004.

SEEREN EEREN Configuration and Performance”, February 2004.

Consortium, “Descri n of Work”, Contract Number IST-20

[2] Consortium, “D

[3] Consortium, “D02-SEEREN w

[4] Consortium, “D03-M

[5] Consortium, “D04- SEERE

[6] Consortium, “D0

[7] SEE Consortium, “D06- SEE

[8] Consortium, “

[9] Consortium, “D08- SE

[10] onsortium, “D10- SEER

[11] onsortium, “D11- SEER

[12] SE Consortium, “D12a- S

[13] Consortium, “D12b- Implementation and Acceptance T

[14] Consortium, “D14- S



Executive summary

Scienc ic stability and growth in th onal Research and Education works (NR work connectivity and basic

or ological status and development not a South Europe fi

ical level of policy developments for national governments and funding

es f NRENs and their contribution to

s del South East Europe" ni

contribution of a grant from NATO. The event took place in Varna, Bulgaria, on 7-9 September 2003 and directors of Telecom operators,

ives, in particular those relating to y all members of the

n into options for the

Section 4 of this report contains the essential information about the workshop, the topics discussed there, the issues and the various arguments debated. There are three fundamental issues that emerge from that.

The case for NRENs in many countries in South East Europe still has to be made. In particular NRENs do not have enough support from their governments and their user community who cannot easily understand their role and the way this differ from that of a commercial ISP.

The lack of competition in telecommunication services in many countries in the region inhibits NRENs from accessing and maintaining an appropriate network infrastructure to serve the research and education community at the level that would be required by them. The essential measures to be addressed in this respect are effective regulation of the telecommunication market and facilitation of NREN’s access to optical fibre infrastructure.

The level of funding and support that international institutions have been making available to organisations providing research and education networking in the region has led to significant progress and built synergy. This has to continue and will continue in the coming years, however the international effort must be complemented by even more serious national efforts, particularly aimed at providing stability to these organisation by ensuring them the appropriate legal framework, staff and funding.

Countries in South East Europe lay at the lowest end of the digital divide affecting some parts of Europe and if serious measures are not taken there is a real risk of research exclusion in the region, which endangers the implementation of the European Research Area.

The conclusions and recommendations for governments of South East European countries are formulated in a document which has been distributed to the relevant officials in spring 2004 and is documented in section 5 of this report.

What is next in the process to deliver the SEEREN results?

Promote further the use of SEEREN by informing the appropriate user groups through special events such as organizing workshops, distributing publicity material, delivering presentations at scientific conferences, setting demonstrations in academic events, all aiming at presenting the new opportunities provided by SEEREN. Individual NRENs will carry out complementary promotional activities in their national user communities as well as participate in activities at the European level.

What is the focus of this Deliverable?

e, research and technological development are essential for future economSou East Europe. Most of the countries in the region have established NatiNet ENs) in some form, in order to provide research users with netnetw king services. However their existence is not secured and their technvery dvanced. There is a digital divide in the European Information Society, and almost all NRENs inEast nd themselves on the wrong side of that gap.

Crit steps towards bridging this gap are to establish a dialogue at the research and education networking and to provide input to the agenda ofbodi . This must be supported by increased awareness about the role oresearch and education, as well as their importance for a country economy.

Thi iverable reports on the "SEEREN Workshop: Policy Issues for NRENs inorga zed in collaboration with TERENA, the ICT Development Agency of Bulgaria and CEENet with the

discussed the aforementioned issues at the level of NRENs managers, government officials and academic users in a very interactive way.

The objectives of the workshop were in line with the SEEREN project objectthe promotion of widespread knowledge of the SEEREN infrastructure and its usage bSouth East European academic and research community and those relating to the investigatioadditional sources of funding that could contribute to the project and ensure network’s viability beyond project lifetime.



1. Introduction

TERENA, CEENet and the SEEREN project, with support from the NATO Security Through Science

ivide, and government support. It was attended by

what NRENs are, their role in

here addressed as well. In the afternoon

ts arising from the discussions held in the previous days, focusing on the need for NRENs,

improved.

ds for future evolution and investigate all possible sources of funding.

s from the workshop.

Programme organised the Advanced Networking Workshop "Policy Issues for NRENs in South East Europe" on 7-9 September 2003 in Varna, Bulgaria, hosted by the ICT Development Agency of the Republic of Bulgaria.

The workshop provided an opportunity for interaction at high level between decision makers, government officials, funding organisations, telecom carriers, NRENs and their users on issues like the role and importance of NRENs, international cooperation, sustainability, digital dmore than fifty key representatives of research and education institutions, governments and telecom operators in the South Eastern European region and representatives of the European Commission and the NATO Networking Panel.

The workshop sessions on the first day were devoted to understandingsupporting research and education in a knowledge society, their management organisation and funding aspects and their interaction with the political institutions. One session focused particularly on the issues of regional and international cooperation.

Day two was mostly devoted to the telecom sector and the issue of prices and access to infrastructure. Issues about regulation of the telecommunication sector and funding wSEEREN representatives held a close project meeting; other workshop participants attended a special Open meeting of the Ideal-IST project about opportunities for research collaboration in the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission.

Day three started with a session highlighting the digital and economical divide in SEE, followed by summaries of the main poinrelationship with Telecom operators and sustainability of infrastructure and services for the research and education community. The major parts of day three was devoted to presentations and in depth discussions about the way governments support NRENs in South East Europe and how this support could be The final session, following these presentations, was a brainstorming about the conclusions and possible follow up actions. The workshop participants agreed to develop a set of recommendations to governments, policy makers and the European Commission.

The workshop conclusions highlighted a number of open issues and measures to address them in the near future.

• Self-sustainability and funding of research networking in the SEE area are still an issue. The work to be done must include a detailed analysis of the current situation in each country, careful estimation of the nee

• Raising awareness among technicians, politicians and users is essential. In particular users are the best candidate to advocate the role and importance of NRENs.

• All players in the area should build on the success of SEEREN and the EU/Balkan Countries Action Plan in Science and Technology.

• Provisions for funding in FP6 are available; however players in the area should increase the attention of decision-makers at the level of national governments and the European Union by addressing a set of clear recommendations and conclusion

Detailed information and workshop proceedings are also available at http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003.



2. Workshop objectives

se awareness about the role of NRENs and their invaluable contribution to the research and

motivated by the recent positive developments with respect to research and

ern Europe to the market economies. In this respect countries of the

tional background, but also to combine scientific and technological

espect, science, research and technological development are seen to be an essential tool for future economiSou ECentral a

The objectives of the Varna workshop were:

1. To establish a dialogue at the level of policy developments for research and education networking and to provide inputs to the agenda of national governments and funding bodies.

2. To raieducation community, as well as for a country economy.

3. To promote regional and international collaboration in the SEE area and with neighbour countries. 4. To provide directors and managers of NRENs with high-level information about the structural and

organizational strategies needed to build, sustain, maintain and develop the services necessary for support the support of research and education.

5. To share and market the SEEREN achievements and exchange success stories for the global impact of NRN development to the progress of regional economies and supporting conflict resolution on a global level by implementation of networking practices.

The focus on the region was education networking reflected by the influx of initiatives such as NATO NIGs and the SEEREN project itself. As a consequence it was opportune to organise a workshop aimed specifically at the South-East European region with a significant participation from the Balkan Peninsula. The transition of the developed world from the industrial era to the knowledge economy coincided with the transition of the planned economies of EastSouth-East European region are in very dissimilar situations. Greece has been a full member of the European Union for more than 20 years, with increasing rates of growth, Slovenia will access the European Union on 1st May 2004, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey work for adaptation to accession requirements and pre-conditions, while five more States (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia Montenegro and FYR of Macedonia) strive to come out of the political and economic instability experienced because of previous crisis situations.

In their effort to adapt to the pervasive knowledge economy and to the global competition the Balkan people have not only to exploit their traditional adaptability for survival, the high level of motivation for social mobility and the relatively good educaknowledge with entrepreneurship, in order to create added value and competitive advantages.

In that rc stabilisation and growth in the region. Therefore the Varna workshop was designed for NRENs in

th ast Europe to face the challenges described above, but also as a possible model for other countries in nd Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and other world regions.



3. Workshop preparation

The Organising Committee defined the scheme and the programme of the workshop during a series of conf nMaypresenta ecided that participation wou ther by g nsessi nd wer lof the Sparticipa ovide lists of potential speakers and participants from thei u

The Orghighest p speakers invitation and Jacek Gajewski took

re

Unfortunately,

port and Communications, sent their apologies for important last-minute commitmen that prevented them to attend the workshop. The opening speech from Mr. Vassilev was read to the attendees by Orlin Kouzov, who also showed a presentation about government support in Bulgaria on behalf of Mr. Ognianov.

ere ce calls in April 2003 and finalised the workshop schedule during a face-to-face meeting in Zagreb in 2003. The workshop was meant to be highly interactive, with a general scheme made of thematic

tions followed by panel discussions. To ensure effective discussion it was dld be by invitations only. Additionally, the majority of participants would have been invited to speak ei

g presentations on the topics suggested by the Organisinivi g Committee or by participating in a panel on. Session chairs would play a significant role in steering the discussion – like in a TV programme, a

e se ected on the basis of their ability in doing so. Adjacent to the Organising Committee meeting a meeting EEREN project partners was held in Zagreb. Managers of research networking institutions in SEE, ting in the SEEREN project where asked to pr

r co ntries, selected among key persons from telecom operators, civil servants and university directors.

anising Committee created the lists of speakers and participants. Both lists included names having riority and reserves. Valentino Cavalli took care of the

care of the participants list. All SEEREN partners actively helped the organisers in contacting the speakers, by supporting the invitations in some case by personal contacts. The invitations were handled and processed during June and July 2003. In the period, the Organising Committee fine-tuned the workshop programme according to the responses from the invitations.

Jacek Gajewski (CEENet) and Rossitza Petrova (ICT Development Agency) inspected the venue in July 2003. Jacek Gajewski, Valentino Cavalli (TERENA) and Rossitza Petrova arrived in Varna a few days before the meeting to finalise the details of the logistic arrangements. The workshop was held on 7-9 September 2003 at the Conference Hall of Hotel Riviera Beach, in the Riviera Holiday Club. The Riviera Holiday Club consists of 6 hotels, in immediate vicinity of the Golden Sands beach, situated in a 1km long, 14ha big park. The venue proved to be a suitable retreat for the work of the delegates. The participants were accommodated in several three-to-five-stars hotels inside the Riviera Holiday Club, except delegates from Albania who were accommodated at a different hotel outside the complex. All lunches and dinner except dinner on day 3 wearranged in the complex.

The workshop lasted for three days, from Sunday 7 until Tuesday 9 September 2003. Most delegates were travelling to Varna on Saturday 6 September and leaving on Wednesday 10 September. A collective return flight-ticket from Sofia to Varna was arranged for speakers and attendees on those dates. delegates from Bosnia and Herzegovina were not able to attend the workshop due to cancellation of the scheduled flight from Sarajevo to Vienna on Saturday 6 September.

The Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria and Minister of Transport and Communications H.E. Nikolay Vassilev and Mr. Alexandar Ognianov, from the Ministry of Trans

ts



4. Content of the workshop

ers

th the political environment. Their role is to provide reliable

unities served by NRENs in Europe (information based on analysis of data from EU

ow many such institutions are

4.1. What are NRENs and why are they important?

The main issue for obtaining the support of decision makers is to improve their awareness about the importance of research and education networking and its relation to users, suppliers of telecommunication services and the political environment. To this extent the main topics, presentations and discussions of the first day focused on the rationale of NRENs existence and operation, which is related to the way research and education networking impacts on the development of the Information Society and the need to have an appropriate infrastructure to support it, the way NRENs work and operate and how they can be properly sustained.

A hierarchical model lies under the administration of research networks in Europe, where at least three layof differently managed networks exist: the university campus LAN, which is the network closer to the end user, the national (and sometimes regional –inside a country) infrastructure and services and the European interconnect (GÉANT). While NRENs influence all levels they are typically only directly responsible for the infrastructure and some services at the national level. In fact, NRENs must have a broad international vision, but if they are to be successful they must be solidly based in the world of their NATIONAL politics, funding, and R&E communities. NRENs are not just part of the research and education community, they lead its developments and support it in close liaison wiinterconnects and services for day to day operation and test new technologies and services that prepare the ground for the future. Research networking is an economic force that has to be exploited and can operate with an alliance of players from academia, research labs, computer industry, some key telecoms vendors for bandwidth provision, industry as users, politicians. There are signs that this is emerging in Europe but to bring it further governments should incorporate the national research networking community into the overall economic development strategy.

NRENs have generally the mission of providing the best network infrastructure and services to their users, as well as developing and introducing new technologies enabling the matching of ever evolving needs of such users. The core user comm15 plus 10 accessing states and 3 EFTA countries) is represented by universities and research institutes, but all NRENs provide network services to other communities to various degrees as shown by table 1 below.

How many NRENs allow HType of institution such a connection actually connected where

allowed

University 100 % 99 %

Institute of further/ 96 %

higher education 67 %

Research institute 100 % 75 %

Secondary schools 86 % 33 %

Primary schools 82 % 25 %

Library 100 % n.a.

Hospital (not uni) 82 % n.a.

Gov. department 89 % n.a.

Table 1: Types of users connected by NRENs

The activities of NRENs can be generally grouped in three main areas. 1) Operating a special network, anaging it and monitoring its performance, planning and upgrading it to match increasing demand of m



bandwidth and service quality. 2) Providing operational services like email, news, web hosting, security, 3) Undertaking research and development on networking e quality of service, IPv6, optical switching, mobility,

Middleware, Grids.

s and many of them have nisations like TERENA

(www.terena.nl

multicast IP, videoconference, directory services etc. technologies catering for future needs in areas lik

NRENs have a strong attitude towards global collaboration with peering organisationeither direct memberships, have signed MoUs or have been liaising with orga

), CEENet (www.ceenet.org), DANTE (www.dante.org) as Shareholders and/or Member of the GÉANT Consortium, Internet2 project (www.internet2.edu), RIPE (www.ripe.net), ICANN (www.icann.org), CENTR (www.centr.org), many are directly involved in EC projects (e.g. SEEREN, 6NET) or contribute to standardisation activities (IETF, etc.).

There is a great variety in the organisational, administrative and legal nature of NRENs in Europe depending very much on national policies, but also on the nature of service provided, the size of the organisation and its funding structure. However, NRENs in Europe have also a lot of commonalities, and reached a reasonably stable and consolidated structure be not for profit but company-like organisation, have clear legal structure stable funding and personnel, rely on well defined organisation rules and professional operation mode, have a clear strategy for medium and long term period, which is revised annually.

Most of the organisational aspects mentioned above have been derived from the structure of CESNET, the NREN of the Czech Republic, which was described as an example by its director, Jan Gruntorad. CESNET is an association of legal entities, including regular members and affiliated members. The situation is similar in other countries, but there also distinctive aspects, like in Hungary, were the NREN is formed by two organizations: a top-down structure, NIIF, which is the legal organisation responsible for design develop and operate the network and HUNGARNET, a bottom-up organisation, which is the actual association of users. In general it is very important that the users are represented in some form in the organisation.

Many details were provided about CARNET as another good example of well managed and organised NREN, perhaps even more meaningful because belonging to a country which is in the same geographical area and had a very close political and historical background. CARNET Accepted to face the organizational/management

increase e capacity of the network, and above all, create a more flexible organisation employing more personnel with

different (non-engineering) background. As a consequence mo thanks to favourable po in 20 l nding and have a solid e m mploys result of this evolution the focus is not so much on infrastructure anymore but on content ment is considered a really serious job – been trained to respond to user needs – need very high quality of the service (customer centred) you need more creative people – research if you want to create new user needs.

In summary, NRENs are needed because they ensure coordination and econom rvices for research and education netw a powerful alliance of users, ensure interaction with politics on national level and provide le .

What is need successfully m heir goal is to make su t they have a suitable organisation i ucture, activit ding principles, employ particular, stability of budget is essent ion.

Fundamental cond stability of the are unity within the country, political support and cooperation with the operators, rather then competition (for a thorough discussion of this particular item see cha ion). Cooperat th peer organizations in r countries and at the international lev tant. It brings be amples from other solidarity and trust, but also suppo s. Indeed the co tion with DANTE was a t p for carrying out and ensuring the success of th ty. This is an example of the way international organizations can he local level too. In general,

tervention of international organisations is very helpful. SEEREN is a good example of this, however work o be done at the national level or else nothing can really be improved in a stable way. The European Union

challenges and underwent several changes over time: the NREN started as a project in 1991 with the goal of interconnecting higher education and scientific institutions and became a legal entity, as a permanent agency in 1995. Since then CARNET has been able to provide stable services to their customers thanks to the stability of finances. Communication between various departments was not very good at that time. The challenge was organizational. They started to give high emphasis on user support and educational services. In 1998 they needed to expand the service offer. This led to launch more educational programmes, create an IXC, th

re funding was needed, until e to secure significantly more fu

43 permanent staff. As a . Manage

litical environment financial stability. At th

02 the organisation was aboment CARNET e

y of seorking, represent

ading edge services

ed for NRENs to n terms of legal str

atch ties, fun

re thaees. In

ial for the organisat

itions forTelecom

NREN

pter 3 in this sect ion wi otheel is also impor

rt in national issuest practice exllabora

NRENs, remendous hel

e SEEREN tendering process for connectivihelp NRENs to achieve good results at t

inhas tinstitutions can impose external bindings to the development of local policies and government decisions. International organisations and representatives of EU institutions should talk to governments and stimulate



them to make decisions that encourage research and education networking as a highway to the information society. Since many countries in the region have to face similar issues it would be intersting to develop a set of common messages that the EU should convey to governments. Once translated into appropriate guidelines, which are then acknowledged by governments, these might be extremely beneficial in ensuring that newly

sers and matching those needs are the best argument for

elected ministers gain the appropriate background information about the role and importance of networking for research and education.

Networking should be seen as a priority in driving towards the information society, but the issue is how to effectively raise the awareness about the NRENs especially at the political level. Predrag Pale suggested that the main issue NRENs should address is: How to communicate with the appropriate political level and how to get the message across. He thought that the needs of uthis. So the main answer to the issue is: NRENs should devote the necessary effort to let their users understand who they are and why they are needed and then let such users advocate for them.

More details on the issues discussed in this chapter can be found in the following presentations: http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/williams.pdf, http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/bonac1.pdf , http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/gruntorad.pdf , http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/rastl.pdf .

4.2. The status of research and education networking in the region

The Varna workshop was attended by representatives of research and education networking organisations from

(CESNET, Czech Republic) and Peter Rastl (ACONET, Austria), but they

he way the importance and role of the NREN is perceived by users,

South East Europe and close neighbouring countries. The audience included NRENs which are directly participating in GÉANT, NRENs which obtain connectivity to GÉANT through the SEEREN project plus Moldova and Ukraine. The NRENs of the following countries were represented:

• Countries directly participating in GÉANT o Greece (member of the EU), coordinator of SEEREN o Slovenia (to become member of the EU on 1st May 2004) o Croatia o Romania, partner of SEEREN o Hungary (to become member of the EU on 1st May 2004), partner of SEEREN o Turkey

• Other countries o Bulgaria (to become member of GN2), SEEREN beneficiary o Serbia and Montenegro, SEEREN beneficiary o Albania, SEEREN beneficiary o FYR of Macedonia, SEEREN beneficiary o Moldova

Ukraine o

Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SEEREN beneficiary) were registered to the workshop but due to an unfortunate travel circumstance could not attend it. Other speakers are managing an NREN in their country, like it is the case for Jan Gruntoradare not considered as being part of South East Europe in the context of this report.

All NREN representatives had been invited to provide an update on the status of research and education networking in their country and about tgovernment and telecommunications operators. Brief summaries of the presentations are given in the following, based both on the slides (insofar as they were produced by their authors) and on the personal notes of the author of this report.

4.2.1. Albania

INIMA, the Institute of Informatics and Applied Mathematics in Tirana is the SEEREN beneficiary in Albania. Thanks to the project Albania is obtaining international connectivity to GÉANT, however, as Neki Frasheri described it, the development of research and education networking in Albania cannot be considered a success story. Neki reported that there is not enough synergy between different organizations in collaborating towards



the creation of a national network and as yet a lot of problems, political organizational, managerial still needed to be solved, and as a consequence there was no national network in place in Albania.

The ways how the role of the NREN is perceived and to organize it are still under discussion in Albania. Neki considered as a necessity the acknowledgement that NREN is a kind of inter-institutional laboratory contributing to the development of the academic community and differ significantly from a simple ISP. The way in which this community will be involved in building the network in Albania will be very important in

Herzegovina. It is important e established at ying to reform

ARNET would be a positive model al responsibility for education and

r research has left BIHARNET ed in 2001 and as yet the daily

interaction between the management team of BIHARNET and all relevant representatives of Bosnia and mal

Since 2001 BIHARNET has been involved in EU projects on behalf of the government of Bosnia and

without its participation in th E

4.2.3. Bu

Research net rk association to provi tion networking services. The association was largely supported by the Soros foundation. In the m s due to stop of support from both the Sor the Ministry of Education and Science estab h nd Research Information Network UNICOM-B". This enti u closed down and government funding for research networking w d T Development Agency, in December 2002 a two-year project e signed between the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport and Communications, ICT Developmen ted Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of

s. Rossitza Petrova became

changing the perception.

4.2.2. Bosnia and Herzegovina

BIHARNET was founded by universities, not by the governments of Bosnia and to notice that after the war BIHARNET was the first educational and research institution to bthe state level. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, representatives of the international community are trthe higher education sector and organize it at state level. In this respect BIHfor others institutions, however this is not the case because there is no politicresearch at state level. Instead, the fact that there is no central Ministry fowithout support. Due to lack of financial resources BIHARNET was disconnect

Herzegovina ministries has not succeeded in ensuring the financial resources needed for reactivation, norwork and development of the network.

Herzegovina. Such an involvement, especially BIHARNET’s participation in SEEREN project, was a very important step forward for the organization. Thanks to SEEREN the academic network is being reactivated during 2004 and BIHARNET again has become very much present in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s academic and research community as well as in the society. Moreover, BIHARNET is undergoing a phase of transferring ownership from ould have been impossible universities to government/s, the progress w

e S EREN project.

lgaria

wo ing in Bulgaria started in 1989 as an initiative of universities that formed an de national research and educa

id nineties the association had to face serious problemos Foundation and the Bulgarian government. At the end of 1998lis ed a legal entity, called "National Education a

ty s rvived until the end of 2001, when it was as iscontinued. Through the efforts of the IC

agr ement wast Agency, Uni

Bulgaria. The agreement focused on the creation of a sustainable model for the development of the research network in Bulgaria after the end of the 2-year project period. A non-for-profit entity was registered – the IST Foundation, which is supposed to legally represent the Bulgarian research network and to further support the implementation of information society technologies in all social and economic fieldthe CEO and Orlin Kouzov the chairman of the organisation. Bulgaria is now becoming a partner of GN2, the successor of GÉANT. The Bulgarian research and education network backbone has POPs in four major cities, but need to connect more universities and schools. (For information about Bulgaria and particularly about the government support for the development of the ICT sector see http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/kouzov.pdf )

4.2.4. Moldova

Research and education in Moldova started as a project activity at a coordinated national level in 1996 and gave rise to the RENAM association, which operates the national research and education network since 1999. Since 2002 RENAM and RoEduNet are collaborating in an exchange project that provides international connectivity to Moldova and paves the way to the integration of the Moldovan academic community into the



European research space. (More details about research and education networking in Moldova are available at http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/bogatencov.pdf).

4.2.5. FYR of Macedonia

MARNet, the research networking organisation of the FYR of Macedonia is a member of both CEENet and TERENA. Research and education in the FYR of Macedonia could benefit in the past year from a significant involvement in multi-country cooperation in the context of the PHARE and Interreg programmes as well as of

ean Union. The main organisational problem at MARNet is that he work of volunteers.

r users. (For more details see http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-

the 5th Framework Programme of the Europthey have no permanent staff and must relay on t

MARNet provides very low speed connectivity to state universities in FYROM and services are quite limited, but include management of the .mk country code top level domain (ccTLD). In recent time they started to obtain significant international support. MARNEt is expected to get 4 Mbit/s for international connectivity thanks to SEEREN. Additionally, the MANI project supported by a NATO Infrastructure Grant (NIG) and by GRNET will provide Gigabit connectivity between university campuses in Skopje, whereas the Skopje MAN itself, based on optical fibre and wireless links, is being built thanks to a grant from the Austrian government. Many things are needed to improve the situation but MARNet have concrete short and medium term plans to do them. Changes are also determined by legal changes in the education sector, with the consequence that the budget will be managed at the local level. MARNet is planning to adjust their economical scheme and partially finance their activity by charging theianw2003/proceedings/kon-popovska.pdf ).

4.2.6. Romania

There are two networking organisations in Romania: RNC and RoEduNet. They were initially created by different ministries but both depend now from the Ministry of Research and Education.

RNC, the TERENA National Member for Romania, connects research institutions, as well as functioning as the ccTLD registry for .ro. RNC got initially a lot of external support from international projects and institutions

) even though leased lines were paid by the local government. A critical situation me, which was initially supposed to fund international link,

Montenegro

(PHARE, IST, NATOoccurred in 1996-97, when the PHARE programchanged its policy and could only be used for equipment and national infrastructure. RNC currently receives 70% of their funding from the government and the remaining 30% from network users.

RoEduNet was officially founded in august 1998, through a Romanian Government Decision (HG 515/August 21st, 1998) as a separate institution under Romanian Ministry of Education and Research administration. The RoEduNet infrastructure was established in 1992 as a collaborative nonprofit association of main Universities in Romania. The main objective was to provide connectivity between Universities and access to the Internet for academic community. RoEduNet is a member of GEANT consortium and connects almost all academic, scientific and cultural institutions in Romania. The network uses a layered structure with 7 Network Operation Centers (NOCs) with connections between them and the connection to GEANT (layer 0 - backbone network) and 33 Points of Operation and Presence (PoPs) in each county (layer 1 - distribution network). Also the networks of connected institutions (RoEduNet members) are included in layer 2 - access network.

The communication infrastructure consists of backbone links operating at 34 and 155 Mbps between NOCs and 2 Mbps links between NOCs and PoPs. GEANT link operates at 622 Mbps. Academic section of RNC is also connected to RoEduNet NOC in Bucharest to access the GEANT network. The amount of government funds has not increased proportionally to the increase of internal and external capacities provided and the area covered by RoEduNet infrastructure, however the financial situation has been kept under control by RoEduNet also thanks to the effect of telecommunication market liberalization, which has lead to a decrease in the cost of leased lines.

4.2.7. Serbia and

A positive example about the perceived importance of the NREN in the area is given by Serbia and Montenegro. Support to research and education networking has been provided by several sources including the European Commission, GRNET, the German government and the government of Serbia and Montenegro itself. The strategic role of the NREN in promoting the transition from an isolated society to an open society, as well



as the introduction of new technology and services for the benefit of the society has been acknowledged by all players. Research users have growing requests for new mission critical services, as well as new aids in the education process. Students see education in networking as a new opportunity for their future. The government

s a high priority. There is mutual understanding and good collaboration nd the NREN. However, not dissimilar from other countries in the region,

securing funding for the network is an issue. In spite of this, the network is quite healthy. Serbia will have an

considers research and education abetween the government of Serbia a

operational Gigabit backbone at the end of October 2003. In terms of international connectivity to other NRENs in the region, SEEREN will provide Serbia with a 34Mbit/s link to GRNET and a 2Mbit/s link to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The most interesting achievement in Serbia, i.e. the dark fibre backbone, is based on two-three years of negotiations between AMREJ, the Serbian NREN, Telekom Serbia and the government, who is the main stakeholder in the company. At the end the government succeeded in convincing the national carrier to provide fibre to the NREN. For Telekom Serbia and the NREN this represented a clear benefit, as the Government has supported the operation financially and as optical fibre was already in the ground Telekom Serbia did not have to bear any additional cost. (For more details see http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/jovanovic.pdf).

4.2.8. Turkey

ULAKBIM, the research and education network of Turkey provide connectivity and network services, basically best-effort IP, to all universities in the country. The network has three PoPs in major towns with local loop at 3.5 Gbit/s and has a 155Mbit/s satellite link to GÉANT. ULAKBIM provide several advanced services

s, including QoS, and multicast. The main issue for the Turkish NREN is related to the unication services: the liberalisation process started in 2003 only and prices of

perators. However, the

however the

vices from Telecommunication operators. The situation is changing rope and other parts of the world due to the wide availability of

optical fibre and the progress of optical networking. Optical networks are usually implemented by NRENs with

on an experimental basimonopoly of telecommconnectivity are still very high, however ULAKBIM were actively seeking offers for alternative (terrestrial) connection to GÉANT.

4.2.9. General issues

Almost all countries in South East Europe face a lot of common issues, especially in relation to the lack of a good national infrastructure, but also regarding staff, stability of funding and government support. They are generally affected by high prices of telecommunication links which in turn depend on monopolistic markets. Many of them suffer from a perceived competition with commercial ISP and Telecoms oliberalisation process has officially started or is going to start soon in many countries and it was suggested that some coordinated actions might be able to support and accelerate it. One such action, which was hoped to have a possible catalyst effect in speeding-up the market liberalisation in the region, might be the creation of neutral (not belonging to operators) tele-housing locations at the NREN premises. It was observed that CERN went down this road 10 years ago and as a result many carriers let their optical fibre terminate at CERN that, in that respect, could now be considered as a “fibre exchange point”. This strategy has positive effects on two sides: because it stimulates competition and brings the fibre were it is needed by the NRENs.

Other common issues relate to the extent of involvement in RTD: how advanced NRENs should be? It is commonly thought that real RTD occurs in universities rather than in an NREN environment, emphasis should be on the different scopes and goals of the research. The community of university researchers look 10-20 years ahead, whereas NRENs, though closely interacting with such a community have in mind their own development framework, which typically looks only two or three years ahead. This is because they have to run their network today as cheap and cost effective as they can.

4.3. Telecommunications markets

NRENs traditionally lease connectivity serquite significantly in some countries in Eu

various degrees of ownership, from ownership of dark fibre or Indefeasible Right of Use (IRUs) to managed wavelengths and or leased wavelengths. In all cases such “customer owned” or “customer empowered” network infrastructure proves to be a less expensive alternative to buying connectivity services from an operator.


http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/kon-popovska.pdf

http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/kon-popovska.pdf


The major issues for all NRENs in South East Europe is related to the prices of (data) Telecommunication services and these depend on the extent of competition, and hence ultimately on the national market regulation. Liberalisation of the national markets will start at different times and will progress at different speeds in various countries in the region, however all countries seem to consider the association with the policies of the European Union as one of their highest political priorities and therefore will be affected by the impact of the European regulatory regime. In accordance to this Claire Milne outlined the results of the SERENATE study on regulatory issues and highlighted the implications of the new regulatory regime for NRENs (see http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/milne.pdf). Thomaz Kalin showed how price variations for international connectivity in the past few years have been tightly intertwined to market liberalisation in the countries connected by GÉANT http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/kalin2.pdf ). Finally Bela Gellai presented the strategies that an incumbent operator like MATAV has about the region (http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/gellai.pdf ). The presentations were followed by a panel with representatives of Telecommunications companies operating in the region.

4.3.1. The regulatory framework in EU and accession states and its relevance to NRENs

In the framework of the SERENATE project Claire Milne has authored a report on the expected developments of the regulation of the electronic telecommunication markets in Europe (see http://www.serenate.org/publications/d7-serenate.pdf). The presentation given in Varna highlighted the main results of the SERENATE study and focused on the likely impact of the new regulatory regime on countries of South East Europe.

European countries are in the process of adopting a new regulatory package of EU directives on electronic communications. The aim is to have as free a market as possible, while at the same time protecting consumers. Licensing in the new regime is abolished and replaced by general authorisations for electronic communications service (ECS). This will have direct consequences for NRENs, who will find no general regulatory barriers to

t also indirect benefits, in terms of liberalisation and subsequent price decrease, f service offering. But this will not happen overnight. The liberalisation

orrelation between high competition and low prices, there are some distorting elements, which make the situation more complex in practice. These include

e ground, the market size and its degree of isolation that may lead, to dramatic reduction of prices during

the negotiation phase.

mply not affordable to an NREN other than by owning its fibre infrastructure.

owning or running networks, buhigher quality and more variety oprocess will develop at different speeds in different countries and will find obstacles posed by the heavy market domination by former monopolists. It is important for NRENs to understand that they are all going in the same direction and can help each other, eventually by reference to practice taking place elsewhere. The new regime defines new rules for “Interconnection”, which is now considered as a special case of “access”, i.e. the ability to use network elements and other facilities. Public communication networks must negotiate access and interconnection, but this does not necessarily holds for NRENs who are not generally providers of public electronic communication services.

4.3.2. Prices of connectivity and liberalisation of telecommunication markets

The price variations in the connectivity tenders for the various generations of the European backbone were correlated in Tomaz Kalin’s talk with the effects of market liberalisation. From the latest generation of the backbone, GÉANT, it appears that traditional SDH lines are 27 times more expensive than Lambda services. The evolution of market competition led to dramatic decrease of prices in some parts of Europe that created what Tomaz called the prices divide, indeed one of the key factors of the digital divide that affects many countries in South East Europe. Notwithstanding the direct c

the availability of infrastructure, specifically of fibre in thetc. Finally, there are unpredictable commercial strategies

4.3.3. Discussion, operators and access to fibre

The most debated topics in the session were related to optical fibre and ownership of infrastructure. As a matter of fact, the main motivation for many NRENs to move to owned infrastructure is to provide the bandwidth needed for advanced services not available on the market. Such services require higher network capacity, which is si


http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/jovanovic.pdf

http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/jovanovic.pdf


Some telecom operators show openness to collaboration with NRENs regarding access to fibre, whereas others have no intention to sell (or provide access to) fibre or wavelengths to the NREN. At the workshop, OTE was probably the only example of the first type and said they offer nation-wide WDM services to GRNET and are ready, in principle, to provide dark fibre in the future. A different case of collaboration, but very special is represented by Telekom Serbia, who provided 670 km of fibre as SDH /GE to the NREN. In fact the representative of Telekom Serbia acknowledged that academic networks are a very special type of customers. On the other hand he claim that telecommunications operators in the Balkans do not have enough fibre in the ground to be able to sell spare ones to NRENs, like it happens in other parts of Europe. In general there has been overinvestment in fibre in EU which is not the case in other regions.

A major point of discussion was the need of a paradigm shift in the traditional relationship between operators and NRENs. Operators should not consider NRENs as competitors, nor as simple retail customers. They should realise that NRENs are a very special type of customers and should rather consider them as the best allied in creating and supporting emerging markets, for instance in the areas of video conference and distance education.

However, many of the operators’ representatives who attended the workshop were not interested in will the

governm . The government controls the prices for leased lines and international connectivity but does not have enough influence to determine any special conditions for the benefit of research

uire high bandwidth and new technologies that, for their limited use, Telecommunications

and education networking in South East Europe. The project has also helped in mobilising resources by the NATO Security Through Science Programme and by a number of

not least the of pan-European networking organisations like DANTE, TERENA and CEENet has been abl e to the success of the initiative by giving the project a significant international visibility

collaborating with the NREN. One case is the represented in the FYR of Macedonia, where the monopoly end officially in December 2004. The incumbent operator, MAKTEL is owned by MATAV and

ent of the FYR of Macedonia

and education networks. The operator cannot be obliged to provide dark fibre to the NREN, like it happened in Serbia. Fibres might become an option in the future as services and regulation change, but currently MAKTEL wants to focus on selling turn-key solutions (including equipment) to their customers, including the NRENs.

The major objection to such a trend lays in the fact that NRENs need services which are not available on the market and these reqoperators are not prepared to sell. However, NRENs should understand that monopolists have no reason to reduce the prices. Businesses do not have to care about the benefit of the country and operators do not necessarily need NRENs testbeds. They see NRENs as customers, sometimes even competitors. If NRENs need to find alternatives to highly expensive connectivity services they should not wait and hope to be able to buy dark fibres from an operator, but look for existing fibre from competitors, like power companies, railroads etc.

4.4. EU/NATO projects and other international initiatives in the region

The SEEREN project, with the help and political will of the European Commission has been able to create a significant momentum for research

commercial sponsors who donated equipment to research and education organisation in the area. Last but involvemente to contribut

and promoting the integration of the whole South-Eastern European area with the European research area to a matter of international concern.

4.4.1. SEEREN

Vasilis Maglaris explained the role of SEEREN in the development of the region and in relation to global networking (for more details see http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/maglaris.pdf). European national research networks are interconnected by GÉANT, research networks in the US and other world regions like Latin America, the South Mediterranean and some Asian countries are cooperating in what is taking the form of global networking. The SEEREN project positions itself as a brick in building this large picture by filling the gap represented in the GÉANT map by the South Eastern European area. SEEREN

nd between countries in the region but in NRENs that are legally recognised and

other in the Western

primarily provides international connectivity to individual countries adoing so it also aims at enabling institutions to create and operatesustainable in terms of organisation, personnel and funding.

Several European countries in addition to those directly participating in GÉANT are currently joining the GN2 project, the successor of GÉANT, which was submitted to the Commission at the end of 2003 and would start before the end of 2004. Bulgaria is among those additional countries, however many



Balkan Peninsula plus Russia, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine are not. One of the strategic goals for future activities in providing ubiquitous pan-European networking is to identify sources of funding for projects that could integrate these regions into the picture of global networking.

Jorge Sanchez highlighted the major achievements of the SEEREN project so far (see for details http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/sanchez.pdf). These started from the analysis of equipment and connectivity needed by the beneficiary NRENs of Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYR of Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro, and went on establishing relationships with organisations active in the region and definitely being able to connect them to GÉANT. The project has been able to pull together additional budget, which is expected to double the initial budget allocated from the EU. The

o

partnership has been able to develop new project proposals complementing the initial network and extending it to more countries, like, for instance the SEEGRID, which extends the concept to Grid application by at the same time incorporating Croatia and Turkey.

4.4.2. GN2 and opportunities in the 6FP of the European Union

GN2 is the project proposal that European NRENs, DANTE and TERENA have submitted to the European Commission for funding the next generation of GÉANT, the current European research and education backbone. GN2 would start before the end of 2004 and would provide the European interconnect for the following four years. and is based on a new paradigm: being able to provide end-to-end quality of service across multiple administrative domains, this includes the support for etherogeneous network architectures as well as the provision of guidelines for edge networks. GN2 has an indicative budget of about 100 million eurand more than 30 participants. At the time of the Varna workshop the GN2 project had not been submitted to the European Commission yet, therefore the presentation could not cover much technical detail. (The presentation on GN2 is available at http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/kalin1.pdf ).

GN2 will see the direct participation of one SEEREN beneficiary NREN: the NREN of Bulgaria. Other countries in the region will have to seek additional support to be able to continue the successful achievement of SEEREN and keep connectivity to the European interconnect beyond the duration of the current project context. But in addition to the GN2 there are several opportunities for RTD in the region both in terms of funding available for projects and in terms of strategic vision about integration of the region in the ERA. In terms of funding opportunities, FP6 is open to finance RTD in 3rd countries. In particular, funding is available

The d by

political negotiations. (More details on opportunities in FP6 are available in the presentation from Bernhard Fabianek http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/fabianek.pdf

for INCO target countries, which include the Western Balkans. The budget available is 285 million euro.actual distribution of the funding will depend on specific implementation strategies that could be influence

).

in their country.

f the NATO Security Through Science Programme on the

d support advanced applications on top of the

The CARDS (Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation) programme of the European Union supports countries in the Stabilisation and Association process. The programme manages instruments of the stability pact however it appears to be difficult to employ CARDS funds for research and education whereas the situation looks more positive for structural funds. It will be possible for EU members and the new accession states to make use of structural funds for electronic communication infrastructure. Governments of accession states have been busy in negotiating the funding priorities with the EU. It was recommended to NRENs to get involved and at least make their requirements clearly known to the person responsible for such negotiations

4.4.3. The view oregion

The NATO Security Through Science Programme was represented by Tor Bloch, chair of the Networking Panel. As an instance of successful contribution to sustainable NRENs in specific world regions, Tor highlighted the achievements of the Virtual Silk Highway project providing connectivity, equipment and expertise for the provision of research and education networking in countries of the Caucasus and five central Asian countries. The NATO Networking Panel would be very interested in supporting NRENs in South East Europe and after having provided a grant for the Varna workshop was hoping to see forces in the region to join and develop a coherent plan for a large cooperative project to submit to the attention of NATO. The project might benefit from a NATO Infrastructure Grant (NIG) annetwork infrastructure. The project should be ambitious in vision and scope, multi-annual and cross-region,



and expand the coverage of services currently provided in the region to academic users by reaching at least secondary school levels.

4.4.4. The Action plan for South East Europe

George Bonas presented the action plan for South East Europe, an initiative of the Greek government during its presidency of the European Union in the first semester of 2003. The action plan was formally adopted in the High level officials and Ministerial conference of 26-27 June 2003 and aims at improving infrastructure and human potential, building institutions and promoting joint RTD activities, by stimulating the usage of existing funding instruments like the 6th Framework Programme, CARDS and Interreg. The task force for electronic networking is part of the Action Plan and was also launched in June 2003. It is expected that the task force will play a role in improving the political and regulatory environment for NRENs in the region. A first step towards that direction has already been done with a set of recommendations to governments concerning issues like the

ructure sharing, importance of NRENs, tariffs of Telecommunications services, business models of infrasttelecommunication regulations, funding and organisation models. http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/bonas.pdf

4.4.5. Discussion

Many networks in South East Europe are weak and unstable due to lack of government support. Often there is not even adequate support for research and university institutions. Political instability and in some cases the inefficiency of the state institutions in countries of South East Europe make interaction with politicians particularly difficult so that as a result it is often easier to work at the international than at the national level. The major source of funding for research projects in the region comes from international programmes, industry

than international ones.

discussed the measures that should be taken to address it. Sustainability relies on various interrelated components, which include legal aspects, infrastructure and

and es in

the Eastern block experienced several years ago. As an example, HUNGARNET in had been depending on

donations, etc. The NATO Programme for Security Through Science has been the biggest donor for some countries in the region. Collaboration in the region has been affected by this situation too. As an example, representatives of MARNet said that collaboration has always been more regular with countries like the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy and Belgium, but much less with other countries in South East Europe. This situation however has changed recently, thanks to the SEEREN project, which has significantly improved collaboration in the region. CARNET, the NREN of Croatia, has a major interest in international collaboration, particularly in the region, as a way of learning from other’s experience in order to improve services to their community and increase efficiency. Like several other NRENs in the region, they are actively involved in CEENet.

With some exception in specific countries, one of the biggest issues lays in providing the national infrastructure. Due to lack of competition, national links are much more expensive However network capacity is not the only problem NRENs in the region are facing, this is a matter of money only whereas using the network and filling it up with content and applications require a lot of culture and educational changes. Improving cooperation between NRENs and with other communities are also ways of reducing the digital divide in the region.

SEEREN represents a giant step for collaboration among NRENs in the region and for the participation of researchers from the region in the programmes of the European Union. However it is important to develop plans to continue and improve the benefits after the end of the project. Lajos Balint has written a sustainability plan for the SEEREN project and during a panel

availability of resources (both internal and external), stable NREN organisation, technical expertisefinancial support. Overall, the current situation in South East Europe is very similar to what other countri

donations and grants from NATO and the World Bank as well as discounts and donations from vendors and equipment manufacturers until more recent years when funding for the NREN was made a stable component of the government budget for research and education.

Financial support is needed to initiate, establish and sustain the NREN, but external money is not enough. Matching funding from national sources is needed. NRENs should be responsible for looking after the financial aspects, thereby making their organisations sustainable in terms of existence and operation. Besides money, collaborative engagement is also important: the two things should support each other. In fact external support has some obvious limitations in so far as it does not guarantee that the network capacity provided by the (funding) project can be absorbed by the user’s applications.


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4.5. How to reduce the Digital Divide in the region

4.5.1. Position issues and discussion

Marko Bonac is the author of the SERENATE study about geographical issues and has been an active member of the expert panel for the NREN Compendium. In his talk he highlighted the issues about the digital divide in Europe and examined in greater detail the situation in countries of South East Europe. Marko’s slides provide a selection of data illustrating the digital divide in countries from the following three groups: European Economic Area, 10 acceding states, SEE (see http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/bonac2.pdf for more details). The parameters used to assess the degree of divide between the various groups include (national and international) network capacity and NREN budget as well as economic indicators, but also the connection speed of customer institutions, traffic loads and the degree of perceived congestion at various network levels and problem areas in policies, funding and economics related to networking. The findings and recommendations of the SERENATE study, which are of major relevance to South East Europe regard the importance for NRENs to access (dark) fibre, the need to advocate for their existence and their participation in joint research projects. Governments and politicians have a role in

ovide it with legal stability and funding, and support its operation by implementing ommunication services, thereby facilitating NREN’s access to infrastructure at cost-

establishing the NREN, preffective regulation of telecrelated prices.

Oliver Popov based his analysis on studies in the Global Internet Policy Initiative (see for more details: http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/popov2.pdf ). The digital divide has been defined as a gap between individuals, households, businesses, geographical areas and countries at different socio-economic levels concerning the opportunities to access ICT and the Internet. The main underlying factors are lack of competition in the provision of telecommunication services, restriction to investments and poorness of government strategies regarding ICT, but also weak judicial systems, political corruption and arrogance associated to lack of awareness and political skills. The particular situation in South East Europe is marked by the lagging-behind of all economic and social conditions and the extreme difficulty of finding priorities.

It must not be forgotten that the Digital divide is related to the overall poverty of the society; however examples of significant developments of the ICT sector in some less favoured world regions, like India, show that such a relationship can be dynamically influenced by a government’s vision, its priorities and targeted actions.

The major debate was triggered by the following questions from Lajos Balint: how to address the divide in South East Europe? Why access to fibre is crucial? One of the first answers relates regulation and digital divide. Regulation is important to ease the divide insofar as it can lead to lower prices. In fact dark fibres are not needed per-se either. The key factor is price (access to high bandwidth at low price). Marko Bonac argued that access to dark fibre is really important, however one has to be realistic and understand at what administrative level it might be justified. In particular, at the level university campus and local loop there is no

alkans that has dark fibre at the moment; however their

ves the NREN some independence from the variation of government policies and provides a better link with the customers. However, in a market

competition or very little and therefore prices of connectivity are very high. In these cases it is worth and justified seeking access to fibre. At the international level network connectivity is less expensive because of competition, so it is probably not necessary for NRENs to own fibre at this level. The national level lays somewhat in between therefore it should be decided on a case by case basis whether fibres are the optimal choice or not, dpending on specific local conditions. The bottom line why NRENs need dark fibre is because they need high bandwidth to serve their user community and cannot afford to pay exorbitant prices for leased connectivity.

Not everybody agreed that access to fibre is the main instrument to fight the digital divide. The availability of bandwidth alone would not improve the situation if there were no users or applications that generate traffic; therefore education is another very important factor. In practice, this is what happens in some countries. The NREN of Serbia is the only one in the Western Bapproach to infrastructure is complemented by an education programme targeted to young students and by activities aiming to raise awareness among university users.

The financing model is important. Most NREN’s funding depends totally on the government budget. This is generally felt to be good in the short period, especially in the starting phase of an NREN’s operation, but in the longer term it is beneficial that a percentage of the NREN’s budget comes from other sources (including charging the users). A mixed component financing model gi


http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/bonas.pdf



dominated by monopolistic operators, NRENs are often not able to be competitivuniversities.

e in the prices they ask to

4.6. Government support

4.6.1. How should NRENs interact with the political level

In the first workshop session Predrag Pale talked about the interaction of NRENs with the political level. Predrag focused on the reason why NRENs need to talk to the political level, what is the fundamental value of NRENs and their user community and how NREN should communicate to the political level in order to be successful. The issues related to the first two issues, the “why” and the “what”, have been raised also by other speakers in various forms and extensively debated during several panels in the first two days, therefore this report does not provide more details and simply points to the slides as a reference for Pale’s view on these subjects: http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/pale.pdf. The last point, “how” NRENs should talk to politicians, had not been addressed elsewhere and is worth to be reported here in more detail.

NRENs need government support on a rather structural basis, therefore it is important that they keep politicians well informed and abreast of changes or new plans in their strategies; they should ask them for approval/consent on critical matters, present their plans and the possible options by clearly explaining the

ood practice taking place elsewhere. Finally intervention and activity of foreign policies and

benefits, drawbacks and caveats and never endanger them by hiding something vital; present their favorite choice and explain why. Politicians have limited time and many things to do, they often consider ICT and networking as lower priority with respect to other issues and therefore it is essential that NREN communicate with them in an effective way. To do this they should gather intelligence information ahead and prepare their communication very well. In order to initiate, inspire and capture the attention of politicians, communication should start via a personal contact, either face-to-face or over the telephone; it is important to carry a one-page document at the meeting to be handed out and left as a reminder, but also to have a full proposal ready to be provided on request.

NRENs should seek allies supporting them in their interaction with politicians. These might be chosen either at same level as the NREN or at the level of the correspondent. Users are extremely important allies, they create the demand for the NREN’s service and if appropriately informed can become their best advocate; peer foreign organizations can witness the excellence of the NREN and inspire the government policies by pointing them out to gparticularly the EU stimulates and increase intervention by local governments.

4.6.2. Support of governments in the region and discussion

The last workshop sessions before the final wrap up and conclusion were devoted to presentations and discussion on government support and interaction with the NREN in countries of South East Europe. Government representatives who attended the workshop showed a deep understanding of the nature and issues of research and education networking. The best example of good interaction between the government and the NREN in the Western Balkans is Serbia and Montenegro. Alexandar Belic, the Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Development of Serbia and Montenegro, gave a presentation, available at http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/belic.pdf, where he explained the reasons why the government of Serbia and Montenegro supports the NREN, what are the areas of government activity and support, what are the strategic objectives and how it is planned to achieve them. The government devotes a lot

on Plan for SEE, Regional Research Coordination

of effort in promoting IST and funding researchers in Serbia. The most immediate needs in terms of networking regard internal connectivity for five large towns in central-west Serbia and improved external connectivity region-wide. The longer term objectives are to provide Gigabit connectivity to all major academic institutions as well as Gigabit external links and ensure a stable institutional framework. Such ambitious objectives can be matched by a combination of concerted effort at the national (Ministry, NREN, Telecom operator, research and education community), regional (ActiCommittee) and international level (EU, NATO, UN), but also with strong government support.

Managers of NRENs were invited to comment as well as to report about how much support they get in their country. Vasilis Maglaris, from GRNET, referenced the Lisbon statements and remarked the strategic importance of South East Europe for the full realization of the European Research Area. He pointed out that sustainability is the main issue for NRENs in the region; however, there is no sustainability for NRENs if they


http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/bonac2.pdf


position themselves as yet another ISP. Vasilis made the general recommendation that NERNs should not behave like a neutral entity/interconnection point, but should target the provision of advanced eScience services that are not available on the market.

e Hungarian government has been providing support to ilestone for the Hungarian NREN was the liberalisation of the data

communication market in 1997-98. This led to reshaping the framework of research and education networking n networking became part of

t for research and education

should be supported by initiatives like SEEREN that bring research and education

Lajos Balint highlighted the way thHUNGARNET/NIIF. A very important m

activities in the country. By government decree, funding of research and educatiothe state budget, which is approved every year by the parliament (the budgenetworking is included in the budget of the ministry of education). One advantage was the end of painful year-by-year budget negotiations with several ministries and with MATAV. Another benefit was the start of public procurement process for acquisition of connectivity. Being integrated in the policies for education, the situation is much more stable now; however, there is still a danger that funding can be cut and therefore a certain degree of negotiation is always needed to arrive at acceptable level of funding. This shows that there is always a strong correlation between research and education networking and the political strategies and therefore it is essential for managers of NRENs to be in close communication with politicians; on the other hand, they should be careful and avoid the risk of becoming element of their political fights.

Marko Bonac reported that ARNES has the status of a public institution and is largely financed by the government of Slovenia; however the organisation bears some costs on its own, like those associated to providing the local loops. ARNES’ administrative status has some advantages but also some drawbacks, for example public tenders are needed even for buying small items, salaries are rather low compared to salaries of people employed in the commercial sector, it is difficult to give high visibility to good results and, as the usage of public funds must undergo public scrutiny, the organisation must be publicly accountable.

Two general comments were made at the end. First, one needs to acknowledge that even though NRENs suffer because of poor government support, becoming politically independent is not really an option for them. The real challenge for NRENs in South East Europe (and not only there) is how to balance the public funding component with the needs of sustainability and professional service offering. The second remark is that sustainability can andnetworking organizations from the region in closer contact with their peer organizations internationally.



5. Conclusions and recommendations

In the closing session the attendees explored various options for ensuring appropriate follow up to the workshop and highlighted a number of open issues and measures to address them in the near future:

• Self-sustainability and funding of research networking in South East Europe are critical issues. The work to be done must include a detailed analysis of the current situation in each country, careful estimation of the needs for future evolution (possibly by developing 2-3 years plans, including also economical estimates) and investigate all possible sources of funding.

• Raising awareness among technicians, politicians and users (university teachers and students) is essential. In particular users are the best candidate to advocate the role and importance of NRENs.

• All players in the area should build on the success of SEEREN and the EU/Balkan Countries Action Plan in Science and Technology.

• Provisions for funding in FP6 are available; however players in the area should increase the attention

ries

of decision-makers at the level of national governments and the European Union by addressing a set of clear recommendations and conclusions from the workshop.

With respect to the last bullet point, the audience agreed to appoint a selected group of people with the task of authoring a short document with specific recommendations for governments of South East Europe. Such a document has been drafted and discussed in several occasions during the months separating the workshop and the finalization of this report and is now ready to be distributed to ministries of South-East European countand policy makers at the European Union level. The final version of that document, dated 1st March 2004, is incorporated in this chapter.

5.1.1. National Research and Education Networks

National research and education networks (NRENs) are organisations that offer specialised networking services to the research and education community. They are integral part of the academia and one of their major goals is to introduce and validate new services by making use of the latest technological developments well in advance of their commercial exploitation. The activities of the NRENs include, but are not limited to: interconnection of all the research and education institutions, development and distribution of information services, analysis and implementation of network technology, education and training, participation in peer international organisations, generation and transfer of know-how and proactive involvement in the creation of strategies for the development of the information society.



5.1.2. Digital divide in South East Europe

and education networking in Europe,

The SEEis havingfull bene f local organisations providing netwtermframewo ng, cont sand poli tand the importance of research networking and provide adequate fundi

The mauniversit nks. This is the result of the lack of

esearch Area (ERA). One should be aware of the risks of information exclusion and recognise the need to close the digital divide as the only way to follow the lead of eEurope in building an Information Society.

5.2. Varna conclusions and recommendations

5.2.1. The drive to the Information Society

• The importance of Information Society developments The European Council has affirmed twice, at Lisbon in 2000 and at Barcelona in 2002, the critical nature of the speed and quality of development of the Information Society in Europe for the future of the continent’s economic prosperity. The aim is to make Europe, by 2010, the world’s leading knowledge based economy. There is no knowledge-based society without the appropriate information and communication infrastructure. Participation in the development and establishment of the information society is a question of autonomy and competitiveness for each and every nation.

• The research and education community is a key driver for the Information Society The research and education community is the environment where new Information and C munication Technologies (ICTs), and their applications, are conceived, prototyped and brought to life. This community is

ted, and further developed. Every year the research and education community generates a new cohort of citizens trained in the

olely on the market forces for the provision of these services, and they require a strong, dynamic, stable, professional, not-for-profit organisation in each country, in order to build, maintain and develop the necessary communication infrastructure.

Recent studies confirm that there is a significant digital divide in researchwith a huge spread between countries in terms of network connectivity and service offering. Countries in South East Europe lie at the extreme lower end of the spectrum. Often the case for effective government support for research networking in these countries still needs to be made.

REN project, a support measure of the European Union’s Fifth Framework Programme in the region, a phenomenal impact on research and education networking in South Eastern Europe. However, the fits of this project will only be achieved if the existence and operation o

ork connectivity and services to the research and education community is sustained with adequate long- funding, excellent technical staff and a resilient management structure. Political support and the legal

rk should ensure the conditions for a stable environment enabling research and education networkiact and co-operation in the region and within the European Research Area. Local, national governments

cy decision makers should undersng to support the research networking community.

jor obstacle to improving research and education network provision at international, national or y level is the extremely high pricing of telecommunication li

competition and frequent persisting dominance of (ex-) monopoly telecommunications operators. The situation in South East Europe today is very similar to the one which existed in the countries of the European Union ten years ago, and the measures which need to be taken are the same. It is vital that the market for electronic communications in the region will be fully liberalised as quickly as possible.

If measures are not taken the research exclusion in South East Europe will obstruct attempts to complete the realization of the European R

om

the place in which the first, real-life, nation-wide tests of many of these techniques are conduc

latest and most advanced applications of the Information Society, who move on from their education to join the workforce.

5.2.2. The leading role of NRENs

In order to fulfill its research and teaching roles effectively, each national academic community needs advanced and stable infrastructure and services, which are growing increasingly important in the modern practice of research and teaching. It is not possible to rely s



The role of this organisation – the National Research and Eservices reactively, at the request from the user community, but also to

ducation Network (NREN) - is not only to provide act proactively as a national focus,

5.2.3. Government interest in supporting NRENs

prosperity and autonomy, and vital for achieving a

eeds, answering to a board which

rdable price to all citizens and enterprises, are ety. An NREN’s role of providing advanced and

ernet Service Provider’s (ISP) role of making different and complementary, and governments

dge and ideas, exploring and experimenting are the most important tivities for the future of the citizens and are no longer confined to universities but are happening everywhere.

ful in expanding

with commercial ISPs. NRENs are needed to provide advanced services, which are not normally available on the market, for a well-defined community. If they are under strong economic pressure NRENs

tion by offering commercial services. NRENs should avoid this ompetitors of ISPs, and in the medium term they will lose the

inspiring, designing and deploying advanced and innovative projects and services which rely on human resources coming from the research and education community itself. It is very important for the NREN to ensure that services required by its users are provided at an appropriate quality level.

In a region where governments have to face a multitude of economical and social problems, they might tend to perceive investments in NRENs and state of the art ICT as being of low priority and something that should wait for “better times”.

However, in order to help speed-up the construction of the Information Society in each country, it is in the best interest of the nation and government to establish and support an NREN.

The governments concerned need to understand that, over the coming decades, investments in NRENs and ICT will be important elements in the creation of economicbetter national future. Therefore, NRENs and the general Internet require investments and care from governments because it should be a national priority to make advanced services available to the broadest audience as soon as possible, in order to capture their creative and innovative potential and to supply them with latest knowledge and information.

Twenty years of European experience show that it is crucial to have only one NREN per country, and that it should be an autonomous legal entity in charge of all education and research nrepresents the major stakeholders. In the medium-term it is best if the NREN is mainly funded via its user community, but it is hard to do that successfully until the user community is itself assured of adequate funding, and possesses sufficient awareness of the importance and role of ICT and NRENs. Accordingly, in an initial phase the efficiency and impact of the NREN can be optimized by direct and full finance from the government budget.

5.2.4. The scope of NRENs

Standard Internet services, which are available at an affoimportant in the process of developing the Information Sociinnovative services for a specific group of users, and an Intavailable general Internet services for the whole population areneed to ensure that both functions are being well met. Over time the advanced services provided by the NREN will find their way into the standard offerings of the ISPs, but at the same time the services required from the NREN will advance further. To ensure ongoing complementarity between the general commercial offerings of ISPs and the advanced services provided by NRENs for their own well-defined communities, it is important that NRENs should have clear, well-publicised and effectively monitored Acceptable Use Policies.

Research and education, exchanging knowleacIn some European countries, especially smaller ones, the government has been very successthe scope of the NREN to include other communities beyond the traditional ones of research centres, universities and higher educational institutes. Some of the communities that have been included in various countries are secondary and elementary education as well as NGOs, libraries, hospitals and other types of public, non-profit access points.

However, it is also important for NRENs to keep in mind that they should avoid being in any way in competition

may be tempted to improve their financial situaat all costs, else they will come to be seen as cjustification for their existence, activity and operation.



5.2.5. The importance of the infrastructure and the government’s role

The communication backbone is a vitally important infrastructure for the NREN user community. It will inevitably be one of the most advanced and large-scale infrastructures in the country.

In order to make an adequate communication infrastructure available to the research and education ation.

hat telecommunications operators (especially those holding a monopoly or

nectivity when no suitable services

communities via the NREN, governments have a special role and oblig

1. Governments need to ensure that sufficient financial resources are made available to the NREN. 2. Governments should exert their interest (based on ownership, the legal situation and the regulatory

framework) to ensure tdominant market position) do indeed provide the services required by the NREN at cost-related prices.

3. Finally, governments should enable, encourage and, if necessary, require NRENs to own their infrastructure for local, national, cross-border, regional and global conare available or those available are offered at exorbitant price. Optical fibre infrastructure offers very considerable economic and technical advantages, and should be the solution of choice.



Appendix 1

Workshop presentations

The following presentations were given. All presentations are available in the workshop proceedings at ttp://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/presentations.htmlh

Mr. Nikolay VASSILEV, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria and MiniTransport and Communications

ster of •

o Opening address

• Aleksandar Belic, Deputy Minister of Science Technology and Development of Serbia

o Government Support in Serbia and Montenegro

• Peter Bogatencov, RENAM

o NREN development in Moldova

• Marko Bonac, ARNES

o The mission and tasks of NRENs

o Geographical issues and digital divide in Europe: findings from the TERENA Compendium and the SERENATE project

• George Bonas, General Secretariat for Research and Technology of Greece

o EU-Balkan countries Action Plan in Science and Technology

• Valentino Cavalli, TERENA

o Introduction to the workshop and TERENA

o Summary: Relationship with telecom operators, prices of connectivity, access to fibre

• Bernhard Fabianek, European Commission

o How can the European Commission help South Eastern Europe and support international collaboration

• Bela Gellai, MATAV

o Hitchhiking on infostrada: CEE incumbent operators? contribution to NREN?s initiatives

• Jan Gruntorad, CESNET

o Managing and organising an NREN

• Miroslav Iliev, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

o Introduction to the Ideal-IST support measure and opportunities for project collaboration in FP6

• Zoran Jovanovic, Belgrade University Computer Centre

o How the importance of the NREN is perceived in Serbia and Montenegro

• Tomaz Kalin, DANTE



o New Generation Network

o Liberalization versus Price Variations

Macedonia international E&R and Networking Cooperation

• Margita Kon-Popovska, MARnet

o

• Orlin Kouzov, ICT Development Agency of Bulgaria

o RTD Support activities of the Bulgarian Government

• Vasilis Maglaris, GRNET

Introduction to the SEEREN Initiativeo

• Claire Milne, Antelope Consulting

The regulatory framework in the EU and accession states and its relevance to NRENso

• Predrag Pale, University of Zagreb

The interaction of NRENs with the political levelo

• Oliver Popov, CEENet

Introduction to CEENeto

o lobal Internet Policy InitiativeDigital divide studies in the G

port research users at campus,

• Peter Rastl, University of Vienna / ACOnet

o Summary: Why NRENs are needed and what is needed to supregional, international level

• Jorge Sanchez, GRNET

The SEEREN Projecto

• Dav ms, CERN

What are NRENs and why they are important

id Willia

o

• Dav W liver Popov

sions

id illiams and O

o General Conclu


http://www.terena.nl/conferences/nato-anw2003/proceedings/bonac2.pdf



Append

Workshop organisers and participants

Vale

Project Developm

TERENA

Orlin Kouzov

Chie x

ICT Develop n

Dr. J e

University of a

Secretary Ge a

Professor Dr. Oliver B. Popov

Saints Cyril a M

Skopje, FYR of Macedonia

Professor Va

Chairma

Athens, Gree

Dr. Jorge-A. Sanchez-P.

SEEREN Project

Athens, Greece

Mr. Marko Bonac

Director of ARNES

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Workshop directors

Valentino Cavalli, TERENA, The Netherlands

Orlin Kouzov, ICT Development Agency of Bulgaria, Bulgaria

ix 2

Workshop Organising Committee

ntino Cavalli

ent Officer

f E ecutive Officer

me t Agency Republic of Bulgaria

ac k Gajewski

W rsaw, Poland

ner l of CEENET

nd ethodius University,

silis Maglaris

n of GRNET,

ce

Manager



Key speakers

Neki Frasheri, Institute of Informatics and Applied Mathematics (INIMA), Albania

Bernhard Fabianek, European Commission, DG Information Society, Research Infrastructure, Belgium

Miroslav Ilie Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria

ral Laboratory for Parallel Processing – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria

Technology, International Cooperation Directorate, Greece

nni, OTE-Globe, Greece

cal University of Athens, Greece

rag Pale, University of Zagreb, Croatia

atia

ation Resources and Networks, Academy of Sciences of Moldova /

s Cyril and Methodius University, FYR of Macedonia

RNet, Saints Cyril and Methodius University, FYR of Macedonia

orislav Popovski, MARNet, Saints Cyril and Methodius University, FYR of Macedonia

– Makedonski Telekomunikacii, FYR of Macedonia

istry of Education and Science, FYR of Macedonia

CEENet, Poland

duard Andrei, RoEduNet, Romania

nstitute for R&D in Informatics – ICI, Romania

stitute for R&D in Informatics – RNC, Romania

y Minister of Science, Technology and Development of Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro

oran Jovanovic, Belgrade University Computer Centre, Serbia and Montenegro

Telekom Srbjia, Serbia and Montenegro

S, Slovenia

ERN, Switzerland

ese Kaptan, TUBITAK-ULAKBIM, Turkey

Oleksandr Le

Paul Drath, S

Peter Rastl, Vienna University Computer Centre / ACOnet, Austria

Tor Bloch, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Belgium

v, Central Laboratory for Parallel Processing – Bulgarian

Sylvia Ilieva, Cent

Rossitza Petrova, UNDP Project NRN, Bulgaria

Jan Gruntorad, CESNET z.s.p.o., Czech Republic

George Bonas, Secretariat General for Research &

Panagiota Bosdogia

Vasilis Maglaris, National Techni

Jorge Sanchez Papaspiliou, GRNET, Greece

Pred

Vesna Vrga, CARNet, Cro

Lajos Balint, NIIF-HUNGARNET, Hungary

Bela Gellai, MATAV, Hungary

as Maray, NIIF-HUNGARNET, HungaryTam

Peter Bogatencov, Centre of InformRENAM Association, Moldova

Margita Kon-Popovska, MARNet, Saint

Oliver Popov, CEENet / MA

B

Toni Rusomarovski, MTcom

Vlado Vasiljevski, Min

Jacek Gajewski,

E

Gabriel Neagu, National I

Eugenie Staicut, National In

Alexandar Belic, Deput

Z

Dragan Kovacevic,

Marko Bonac, ARNE

David O. Williams, C

N

bedenko, UNREN, Ukraine

ingleimage, United Kingdom

Tomaz Kalin, DANTE, United Kingdom

Claire Milne, Antelope Consulting, United Kingdom



Other Participants

NIMA), Albania

of Economy, Dept. Of Mathematics and Informatics, Albania

aria, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

ons Company PLC, Bulgaria

ciences, Bulgaria

ET, Greece

nd Methodius University, FYR of Macedonia

rsity, Romania

ommunications H.E.

Bulgaria

RNET), Bosnia and Herzegovina

niversity of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Department of Technical Informatics, University of Tuzla, Bosnia and

Gudar Beqiraj, Institute of Informatics and Applied Mathematics (INIMA), Albania

Marnglen Bukli, Institute of Informatics and Applied Mathematics (I

Bashkim Ruseti, University of Tirana, Faculty

Angel Abadjiev, UNDP Project NRN, Bulgaria

Kiril Boyanov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria

Boyko Dimitrachov, Bulgarian Telecommunications Company PLC, Bulgaria

Todor Filipov, ICT Development Agency of Bulg

Dragostina Grancharova, Cisco Systems Bulgaria,

Peter Ivanov, Cisco Systems Bulgaria, Bulgaria

Vladimir Petkov, Bulgarian Telecommunicati

Georgi Stoyanov, UNDP Project NRN, Bulgaria

Radoslav Yoshinov, Bulgarian Academy of S

Dimitra Kotsokali, GRNET, Greece

Athanassios Liakopoulos, GRN

Aleksandar Dimeski, MARNet, Saints Cyril a

Octavian Rusu, Al.I. Cuza Unive

Vladyslav Khmarny, Ukrtelecom, Ukraine

Valery G. Makarov, Ukrtelecom, Ukraine

Apologies

The Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria and Minister of Transport and CNikolay Vassilev

Mr. Alexandar Ognianov, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Republic of

Azemina Vukovic, Director - B&H Academic and Research Network (BIHA

Dragoljub Mirjanic, Rector of the U

Naser Prljaca, Associate Professor, Herzegovina


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