THE AmIUG BULLETIN local electronic publication of the Armenian Internet Users Group ---------------------------------------------------------------- November 1, 1998 Vol. 3, No. 5 hostmaster@amnic.net ----------------------------------------------------------------- THE AmIUG BULLETIN is a bimonthly electronic newsletter of the Armenian Internet Users Group composed of timely information about Internet-related events and services in Armenia, Armenian Internet Users Group updates, summaries of Internet news from Armenia, the international press, and announcements of relevant conferences, seminars, and workshops. THE AmIUG BULLETIN is on the Web. You can visit the AMNIC www server, www.amnic.net to find the AmIUG Bulletin there. In this issue: AmIUG Council meeting on October 22 1998. the AmIUG Council meeting had taken place on October 22, 1998 at AUA (40 Bagramian str.). Agenda 1. Armentel policy and its influence on the Telecommunications Market in Armenia. Discussion of the AmIUG draft letter to the prime-minister concerning Armentel (copies to be sent to mass media) 2. Appointment of the AmIUG director. 3. Discussion of a proposal for creation of AmIUG Committees: Programming, Fund raising, ISP coordination and Science 4. Election of vice-presidents 5. Eurasia grant to AmIUG (Reporter A. Nazarian) 6. Discussion of the application for membership in CEENet. 7. Anti hacker agreement discussion 8. Anti spam list and local mail server problems 9. Present and future state of YIX (Reporter T. Nazarian, UNDP). Discussion of a draft agreement between ISPs concerning the usage of YIX 10. Armenia on-line server www.am 1. Discussion of the first topic of the agenda. A draft of an open letter to the Prime Minister was proposed. V. Sahakian noted that the letter of the proposed contents will hardly have any influence and suggested to mention in the letter the needs of Armenia in the telecommunications and the obstacles that bothers the achievement of the needs. V. Sahakian also proposed to create an Editing Board that will collect all additions and corrections and a week later will send the corrected version of the letter to all AmIUG members for discussion. It was proposed to elect V. Sahakian, A. Toneyan, G. Sagian, and I. Mkrtumyan as members of the Editing Board that will prepare the corrected text of the letter, taking into accounts all opinions. The proposal was brought up for vote and was supported unanimously. E. Danelyan proposed to put the adopted version of the letter to the AMNIC web pages and if no comments are received within a week to send the letter to the Prime Minister office and mass media. 2. Discussion of the second topic of the agenda. I. Mkrtumyan reported that according to the AmIUG charter the Council appoints the Director of AmIUG by presentation of the Chair on the period of three years. The time of the present Director A. Alexanian is elapsed and the Council must appoint a new Director for the next three years. I. Mkrtumyan highly appreciated the activity of A. Alexanian during his directorship, his contribution to the process of standing of the AmIUG and his devotion to the idea. I. Mkrtumyan proposed to appoint A. Alexanian as a Director for the next three years. The proposal was brought up for vote and was supported unanimously. 3. Discussion of the 3rd topic of the agenda. In order to bring the AmIUG structure closer to that of standard ISOC Chapter (having in view the expected reorganization of the AmIUG into ISOC Chapter) I. Mkrtumyan proposed to create four Committees, namely Programming, Fund Raising, ISPs Coordination and Scientific Network. V. Mekhitarian proposed to create the Armenian language Committee that will coordinate the problems of Armenian Language usage in the Internet. The proposal was brought up for vote and was supported unanimously. The following candidates were proposed for Heads of Committees: Programming Committee - G. Saghian, Fund Raising Committee - A. Nazarian, ISPs Coordination Committee - A. Toneyan, Scientific Network Committee - V. Sahakian, Armenian in the Internet Committee - H. Melikian. The proposal was brought up for vote and was supported unanimously. 4. Discussion of the 4th topic of the agenda. The following candidates were proposed as Vice-Chairs of the AmIUG: V. Sahakian, G. Saghian, A. Nazarian, and A. Toneyan. The proposal was brought up for vote and was supported unanimously. 5. Discussion of the 5th topic of the agenda. I. Mktumyan informed that due to marketing research, development of a business plan and organizational efforts of A. Nazarian the AmIUG received a Eurasian Foundation grant for setting a Training Center of Local and Global Network Administrators. The aim of the grant was to meet the shortage of local and global network administrators in Armenia. It was proposed to affirm A. Nazarian as a Director of the Project. The proposal was brought up for vote and was supported unanimously. 6. Discussion of the 6th topic of the agenda. Mkrtumyan reported that CEENet is an organization of Central and East European Networks and membership in the CEENet is very beneficial because it will give AmIUG members the possibility to participate in the CEENet workshops and conferences. The AmIUG financially is able to pay the membership fee which is about $250 per year. Mkrtumyan proposed to join the CEENet. The proposal was supported unanimously. 7. Discussion of the 7th topic of the agenda. The meeting decided to postpone the discussion of the question to the next Council meeting. 8. Discussion of the 8th topic of the agenda. It was stated that some of the Armenian mail servers do not correspond to the ORBS (Open Relay Blocking System) requirements and because of that other mail servers block their mail. The ISPs responsible for that were called to take necessary measures to solve this problem. 9. Discussion of the 9th topic of the agenda. T. Nazarian pointed out the drawbacks of the AmIUG activity: not regular AmIUG Bulletin publication, absence of the AmIUG Charter on the AMNIC server, absence of Armenian Internet Network development plans. Then T. Nazaran described the state of the YIX problem: "… Since, last year we had some problems for finalizing the YIX component of the project, UN headquarters in NY sent a consultant for a mission to identify the problems and make recommendations for the revision of the project document. According to the results of the last year meetings with all the involved parties, the recommendations were made to remove the YIX as a separate component from the project to avoid duplications (Armintelcom's YIX) and political type of unrests (very aggressive attitude of some ministries and ISPs towards the project's YIX component). So the joint commission of UNDP, UNOPS and the Government made revision and approved the revised project document. According to it, the Freenet component is strengthened and the former YIX became one of the small technical components of the Freenet. It means, in order to make sure an easy and high quality access of Freenet users to the rest of Armenia and make Freenet Web Sites easy accessible from Armenia, to connect Freenet to the other ISPs using our national radio-modems (Arlans) through two-side peering agreements. So it's no longer a YIX at all, but the project's efforts to give high quality services to its users. However, if some of the parties, who are connected to Freenet, mutually agree to exchange their internal traffic, the project will support them by providing a routing through our facilities. Also, we've always provided and will provide a back-up e-mail traffic to the users of the all ISPs who are somehow connected to us, in case if their outside connectivity stops for some technical reason. So we provided to each acting ISP (Arminco, YerPhi, Infocom) a pair of radio modems to connect us, also we connected our second public-access training site to the project premises through a radio-modem, which is located in the Parberakan building, and the ministry of foreign affairs. Currently, only Arminco's and Physics Institute internal traffic is flowing through our facilities as per their request, using static routing. The procedure for the future is: * or all the ISPs are making a joint decision for a creation of a YIX based on the project facilities, and presenting to the project their proposals for reviewing and in the case of approval, to revise again the project document accordingly * before the termination of the project, the terminal evaluation commission we'll ask again to all the parties if they need the existing exchange point for their future needs, to come up with suggestions." Then the discussion continued. V. Sahakian told that YIX can belong only to a neutral NGO public organization like AmIUG and proposed to start transferring the ownership of YIX hardware to the AmIUG. G. Sagian told that before starting the functioning of the YIX it must be clearly defined who has the rights to connect to the YIX, i.e. there must be a clear definition of ISP. One of the conditions is that they must be ASN holders. The Council decided to continue the discussion of the problem on next meetings. Open letter to the Prime Minister of Armenia Mr. A. Darbinian Dear Mr. Prime Minister, The Armenian Internet Users Group (AmIUG), which unite nearly all Internet users of Armenia, is addressing you with this letter to call your attention to the situation in the Internet in Armenia. We think that today the development of the Internet is of the most important tasks, because the link with the world information space is a necessary condition of development of economics, education, business and service. To provide an effective connection to the Internet high-speed communication channels are necessary. It is a long time already that Armenia is feeling an information hunger because of the limited capacity of external communication channels. It is known that any branch of economics, as well as telecommunications, can develop only in conditions of free enterprise and competition. In this situation it is difficult to understand giving to Armentel a 15-year monopoly practically on all types of activity in telecommunications, as well as in Internet, because the monopoly brings to the increase of service prices, stagnation and striving for maximal profit. The facts are evidencing that the monopoly of Armentel is already became an obstacle to the development of Internet in Armenia. For an example, the cost renting of one 64 Kb channel from Armentel today is from $5000 to $6500, that is 7-10 times higher than international prices, which is contradicting to the item 6A1 of the license given to Armentel. At the same time the conditions of the contracts proposed by Armentel are unusual in the world practice - the Armentel may not provide the communication line during 5 days though in the world practice this time must not be greater than several hours per month. The conditions of contacts with Armentel are not subject to discussions. Local Internet Service Providers can rent high-speed satellite channels and there are a lot of companies in the world that can provide such channels but because of the Armentel’s monopoly it is forbidden. At the same time Armentel is not only unable to satisfy requests for such channels but did not even respond to applications. The access to the international information space is the necessary pre condition of the development of a country, its economy, education system, entrepreneur’s activity and service. To provide the effective access to the Internet there is a need of high-speed communication channels. It is long ago as Armenia experiences an information starvation because of the limited capability of the external communication channels. ISPs are able to rent high-speed satellite channels and there are a lot of companies in the world that can provide such channels but it is forbidden because of the Armentel monopoly. The Armentel itself does not provide such channels but even does not respond to requests. Armentel is also not able to provide the reliable functioning of the external channels. Recent events when because of the bad management in Armentel a considerable part of Armenia was deprived of the access to Internet and world e-mail system demonstrated how vulnerable is the telecommunications system in Armenia and how dangerous it is for the survivability of the country in the extreme situation. This too contradicts to the item 7A of the Armentel license. High-speed communication channel is not simply a goal but the acute necessity. Distance education centers and virtual universities are rapidly developing in the world. They permit a person having a computer connected by telephone to the Internet to get an education practically not coming out of his house. But because video, graphic and audio information is transferred during these sessions high-speed channels are a necessary precondition for that. Because of the absence of high-speed channels many organizations of Armenia gave up their plans for introduction of distance learning through the Internet and development of teleconferencing systems while others are forced to limit access to the Internet. Science and education of Armenia is long ago starving for the high-speed external channels for provision of the Internet access to scientists, researchers, and students. These channels can provide consultations, discussions, and conferences. Armenia - in former days a country with an advanced science - because of the absence of high speed and cheap channels soon will become isolated from the world science. In this situation the Government can help essentially providing the possibility to develop and introduce modern information technologies not to a company but to all wishing organizations. It will help the creation and development of national structures. But the existing limitations do not permit that. If our scientists, researchers, companies can compete in modern technologies with companies with big capital and international authority, it can only be welcomed. It is envisaged in the Armentel license that if the latter does not satisfy the intended requirements, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications can recall the license. It is already obvious that the Armentel does not fulfill and can not fulfill some of the license requirements. The AmIUG calls the Government of Armenia in face of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications to state that the license will not proliferate to the Internet channels and allow ISPs to rent Internet channels immediately from the international companies. This will improve considerably the possibilities of scientific and research information exchange and will help to speed up the country development. Adopted at the AmIUG Council