Improving Connectivity in theLeast-Connected World

btNOG 6Paro, BhutanJune 3, 2019

Hervey AllenNetwork Startup Resource Center

Why do we try to build a connected world?

• It’s a good thing to do?• For the love of technology?• For the challenge?• To connect people?• To assure that everyone has access to the same

information?• For convenience?• Some other reason(s)?

Why? For me…

…the more connected we are, I believe, the more we realize how much we are all actually alike.

I think the world needs this.

The connected world

Whatever your motive may be for building the Internet, yourwork is important on a global scale

I work for the NSRC

1990

Formed in 1990 by Randy Bush and John Klensin as a non-profit NGO

1992

Frist funding by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) received by the NSRC via MIT

1996

Headquarters at the University of Oregon since 1996

Our Mission

The NSRC cultivates collaboration among a community of peers to build and improve a global Internet that benefits all parties. We facilitate the growth of sustainable Internet infrastructure via technical training and engineering assistance to enrich the network of networks. Our goal is to connect people.

Our strategy and what we’ve learned

The most important thing is

ListenThen

Be respectful and Never assume

• Working in 120+ countries since 1992• Providing technical capacity building to more than

20,000 engineers• Direct engineering assistance provided to dozens of

universities, Internet exchange points and scientific institutions.

Learned from…

Who we are• 10 employees and students based at the University of Oregon• 25 contractors from Eugene to Denmark to Senegal and New Zealand and from all over• Instructor trainees in all parts of the world• Volunteers from universities, ISPs and industry

Eugene

• After all that work and all those years… What’s left?• Generally speaking two big problems left:1. Areas with small populations2. Areas that are distant from the “big pipes”

It’s getting better, but how do we solve this?First, here’s some relatively recent progress…

Are we done yet?

Connecting our world…http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Visualizations/InternetMap

Workshops, direct engineering assistance and equipment in Bhutan (DrukNET)

Next fewslides…

https://wearesocial.com/

&https://datareportal.com/

• Lack of accessible bandwidth and competition between service providers.

• Lack of stability. The network goes down often.• Challenges with navigating Internet administrative

processes (obtaining address space, ASN, etc.).• Network security issues.• Issues with reliable power and other infrastructure items

(air conditioning, dust, moisture, cabling, people, etc.).

Challenges to connect everyone elseInfrastructure and Regulatory (1 of 2)

• Lack of terrestrial fiber.• High cost of telecommunications and network

equipment that are exacerbated by high import duties, taxes (such as VAT) and additional charges (storage, transaction fees, etc.) that are assessed in order to import hardware.

• Difficult regulatory environments and regulatory barriers• Poorly structured campus, government and/or corporate

networks.

Challenges to connect everyone elseInfrastructure and Regulatory (2 of 2)

• Lack of enough well-trained network engineers.• Retention of well-trained network engineers once

they are trained…• Difficulty finding business models that work in rural

areas.

Challenges to connect everyone elseHuman, finances and issues of cooperation (1 of 2)

• Excessive dependence on external sources of funding.• Lack of sustainable funding models to cover operating costs.• Lack of well-structured government models for education

and research.• Lack of national or regional cooperation.• Many countries need stronger national leadership to push

for policies of open access Internet that supports education and investigation.

Challenges to connect everyone elseHuman, finances and issues of cooperation (1 of 2)

• Long distance fiber optic cables• Google

– Loon– Project Link– Station

• TVWS (TV White Spaces)• Low Earth orbit satellites

– Athena (Facebook)– O3B mPOWER– OneWeb (Softbank)– Starlink (SpaceX aka Elon Musk)

The Future: Game Changers

• Long distance fiber optic cables– Google’s Project Link

(Now CSquared (http://www.csquared.com/)• Kampala, Uganda• Accra, Ghana• Monrovia, Liberia

– Cost of optics (fs.com, others– The explosión of long-distance, fiber optic cables

• Less expensive Enterprise / Business WiFi (Ubiquiti Networks, others)• Internet access via celular networks• Deregulation

The Future: Some Details

https://www.submarinecablemap.com/

https://dyn.com/blog/first-subsea-cable-across-south-atlantic-activated/https://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/south-atlantic-cable-system-sacs

South Atlantic Cable System (SACS)

En operación 18 Septiembre 2018!

The problem of scale in the Pacific…

Africa is big… 30.37 million km2…

(Bhutan = 0.0013%)

But…

The Pacific is even bigger....(161.8 million km2)

In spite of this wehave seen BIGchanges…

Just finished to Papua New Guinea… https://subseaworldnews.com/2019/03/04/dataco-completes-kumul-submarine-cable-system-2/

Africa’s Connectivity

Courtesy Steve Song and https://manypossibilities.net/

1999

2001 - Q2

SAT3

2009 - Q3

TEAMs

2010 - Q4

GLO1

2012 - Q3

ACE

Terrestrial fiber growthCourtesy Steve Song and https://afterfiber.org/

In 2014

In 2019

Growth in Asia

And Latin America

So, basically, there is a bunch of connectivity

Now how to get connectivity to the least-connectedareas?

Google: Proyecto Link o CSquared

Google: Proyecto Loon

Google: StationOne idea for those with less resources

Google: Station

• The first hour of access is at full speed. After that it’s slower, but no time limit• No access restrictions – a “net neutral” project

Community Wireless

https://guifi.net/

Wireless community networks

http://www.nepalwireless.net/

TVWS: TV White Spaces• Active deployment in some areas• Provides up to 50 Mbps speeds• Active in rural United States and all

continents• TVWS trial in Bhutan in 2014

(https://bit.ly/2K61ebM)Some resources:

– https://manypossibilities.net/tv-white-spaces/ (*)– http://whitespaces.microsoftspectrum.com/– https://www.carlsonwireless.com/tv-white-space/– http://wireless.ictp.it/tvws/book/ (free book)

Low Earth Orbit

Satellites

Low Earth Orbit Satellites• Amazon (Project Kuiper) (3,200+

satellites)• Facebook (Athena)• LeoSat (108)• O3B (mPower) (• OneWeb (650 satellites)• SpaceX (12,000 satellites)• Telesat (Leo) (292 satellites)

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/facebook-may-have-secret-plans-to-launch-a-internet-satellite

https://www.hindustantimes.com/tech/athena-facebook-is-building-a-satellite-to-beam-internet-down-to-earth/story-qrAjng6tLzmmD59jXGpPZM.html

Athena

O3B: Coveragehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O3b_Networks

Low Earth Orbit satellites: OneWeb

• First launch, 6 satellites(Feb 2019)

• 900 satellites to start• Providing 5G service• Group of investors and Airbus• 2 billion raised and spent, so far

Low Earth Orbit Satellites:

Starlink

• 7,518 V-band satellites at 340 Kilometers of altitude

• 4,425 ka and ku-band satellites at 1,200 kilometers.

• Recent launch of 60 using SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

• Starlink is to fund SpaceX (Elon Musk’s) plans to build a Mars transportation infrastructure

SpaceX Starlink release SpaceX Starlink future

OneWeb’s Vision

Imaging a world that’s “100% Connected”

First of all… Is this something that everyone wants?

I don’t have an answer…

Can people pay for these services? Will they be willing?

Looking ahead

• It looks like the network is coming… Way way orthe other?

• All this data still needs to be moved regionally. • What we build now affects how these new

technologies will work in the future.

Gracias

Thanks

Obrigado

Merci

Bedankt