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From: avg@hq.demos.su (Vadim Antonov)
Newsgroups: comp.society.development
Subject: Re: Computers and Telephones
Message-ID: <1991Jun1.124059.8093@hq.demos.su>
Date: 1 Jun 91 12:40:59 GMT
References: <1991May27.141355.978@darwin.ntu.edu.au> <1991May28.183943.16259@convex.com> <1991May28.204751.11309@news.larc.nasa.gov> <3506@laura.UUCP>
Organization: DEMOS, Moscow, USSR
Lines: 92

In <3506@laura.UUCP> rv@deins.Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Ruediger Volk) writes:
>Oh yes, a good telephone system is essential to modern business!

Can't agree more :-)

>But if you have a bad and overloaded one (and slow and unreliable postal
>service) there are cases were carrying some of communications by a computer
>networking service (using the bad phone system you have!) will give you 
>a leading edge; at least that's one of the lessons I learned from discussions
>with colleagues from Eastern Europe over the last year.

Our humble experience of running the biggest public computer network
in Soviet Union shows that there is a lot of possibilites to use
old technology to carry digital data. For example we're running stable
9600 bps links over copper wires leading via our phone exchange which
was installed in 1929 (Telebit's PEP modems, of course). V.22bis works
reasonably well over noisy lines but V.32 sucks.

I've got an impression that reasonable UUCP-based network could be
established everywhere in the world. Our current average delivery delays is
about four-five hours; we're working on reducing it by replacing
backbone links with 9600 bps IP links over IP lines.

Satellite technology is still expensive and therefore requires existing
domestic delivery nets to split the expenses. Still, we're looking
for new solutions in this field; for example one of the most advanced
Soviet projects suggests using of on-table flat satellite anttennas
(not dishes but phased antenna arrays (sp?)) providing sustained 9600 bps
througoutput. This project includes launching stationar satellite
covering Europe and practically the whole territory of Soviet Union and
producing about 15000 such devices a year. Technically it already
works, phinancial status is still unclear (in any case it'll be much
cheaper than existing Western satellite links). Currently it works
four hours a day via a military communicaton satellite.

INMARSAT is really expensive and cannot support permanent links with
sustained througoutput - it was designed to carry emergency information;
not the daily dataflow. (Ok, at the war time it's useful).

Ex-Eastern Bloc countries as a rule have rather advanced "closed"
communication systems which were used by communist party officials
and secret police services (like so-called "vertushka", the government
telephone system in SU). These systems tend to became commercially
available (for example ISKRA-2 in Moscow, the net of digital phone
exchanges intended to replace "vertushka", now it's the business phone
exchange). These phone networks are practically useless as means of
mass voice communications (there are only few "vertushka" phones
in each city) but can be quite useful for backbone UUCP or dial-up
IP links between regional e-mail nodes.

There are some industrial communication systems (like the one of Ministry
of Oil and Gas Industry); they could be used for computer communications
as well. HAM radio cannot be considered a vital alternative to surface
phone links due to small bandwidth and low reliability, the legal
status of such link in SU is unclear.

>This may seem strange - and needs and available infrastructure in third
>world countries may be different (and certainly vary) - but just consider
>your computer busy trying to establish a connection during all of the night
>to relay some messages...

It's usually much simplier - your computer forwards the message to
a city backbone over domestic phone system - usually it's simple and
does not consume lots of time; then the backbone delivers your message
using one of the ways I described before to other Soviet/Western backbone.
No need to dial through adverse long-distance links...

>Of course you need to have at least some parts of a wrotten phone system...

Hm. Are there any places without phone systems?

>The difference between former Eastern Block and third world often may be
>that the former usually has some internal infrastructure however wrotten
>but very bad international connectivity (quite bad even between the old allies)
>while the reverse maybe true for quite a number of third world countries.

Agreed (cannot say much about third world countries).

Anyway the main problem we got is the lack of qualified and initiative
people to establish regional nodes and keep them operating. Still
we found the huge demand for both international and domestic communications
(hm, we expected that the most part of e-mail traffic will be international
but now we have slightly bigger domestic traffic). The networking
society in SU didn't exist a half of a year ago and we have to spend
lots of time for missionarie activity - talking with people to make them
to break their own iron curtains and to open to the world. Amazing but
really tiring :-)

Cheers,

Vadim Antonov
DEMOS, Moscow, USSR