ACP

1. Dany Vandromme & George McLaughlin ACP

2. Specific Objective of the Assessment Study • to examine the relevance and viability of establishing or enhancing National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in the Pacific Region • and/or the implementation of a Regional Research and Education Network (RREN), • as well as identifying potential beneficiary institutions and other stakeholders.

3. Who initiated the Study • The European Commission - on behalf of the Pacific Region of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) Group of States within the framework of the 10th EDF* Intra-ACP Development CooperationACP Connect for Research and Education Networks Programme • * = European Development Fund

4. Why? • Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands are the most underserved parts of the world, particularly with respect to affordable high-speed telecommunications infrastructure, and exploiting that infrastructure to improve education, health, societal benefit and research outcomes. REN initiatives are well advanced now in Africa and the Caribbean, but much less so among most of the Pacific Islands.

5. Undersea Cable Deployment - the underserved • As of mid-2012, only 21 nations and territories remain isolated from fibre optic connectivity, though projects are underway in many of these markets at the time of writing (Submarine Cable Industry Report, Issue 1, July 2012, Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc.) • The Pacific Island Nations and Territories together with Timor Leste account for more than half of these

6. Much Interest in addressing these issues for the Pacific Islands • World Bank; Asian Development Bank; • AusAID; NZAID, JICA, ITU, UNESCO • Asia Pacific Telecommunity • Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association • ACP Group of States, EC • U Hawaii; NSRC, NSF • Pacific Telecommunications Council • Pacific ICT Regulatory Resource Centre • New players and partners of influence

7. TARGET COUNTRIES for this Study • A number of Pacific Island Countries consist of many islands • The region spans 6 different time zones • Largest population more than 6 million (PNG), smallest just over 1,000 (Niue) • Recent political challenges in some • Critical survival conditions for others (eg Kiribati due to threat of sea level rise) • low priority of REN issues relative to other pressing social and environmental needs

10. New submarine cable infrastructure Yap Palau Solomons Current and Planned Cable Systems in the Pacific Island Region

11. Established 1968 12 member countries Multi owned and multi funded 33million Sq Km ocean USP SERVING THE PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES

13. CONCEPTUAL REN

14. Global view

15. Opportunities as part of the global NREN community • Immediate access to massive teaching and learning resources • Opportunity to participate in regional and global collaborations • Societal benefit • Improving lives as a result of implementing advanced communications that support the well-being of the population (eg access to expertise 1000’s of km away, disaster warning and mitigation) - examples • Catalysing and stimulating the information economy • Providing services to transform business, society, and personal lives. • Implementing collaborative innovation and access to information • Acting as incubator for technology transfer to industry and commerce

16. Research vs Societal Benefit agenda • Good networking can vastly improve societal benefit • When combined with a research agenda eg • earthquake modeling/prediction • climate change research • remote immersive diagnostic systems for patient assessment • bioinformatics research to improve response and mitigation of emerging infections a compelling case may result • Drivers depend on the needs of the country concerned and the ability to support the initiatives

17. Structure of the Study (1) Inception Report Desk Study Field Phase Synthesis phase

18. Structure of the Study (2) More than 70 individual contributors (mainly face-to face) Contributions from more than 40 organisations Compilation and analysis of relevant studies already undertaken Assessment of the Regulatory Environment Identification of the Education and Research Requirements Identification of potential user Institutions of a Pacific REN

19. Findings, Roadmap, Awareness Raising Deficiencies in Information Exchange between R&E Institutions and between relevant Ministries Limited extent of current R&E Networking among the target countries of the Study Factors to address for enhanced uptake of undersea cable capacity Regional initiatives, potential synergies and potential sources of funding Development of a Roadmap and Awareness Raising

20. Observations Mostly, among the ACP Pacific Target countries, education, human capacity building and societal benefit have higher priority than research High costs for local and international telecommunication infrastructures and services are a significant obstacle Insufficient understanding for R&E traffic and consequences in terms of peering and funding agreements In those target countries where the pricepoint of mobile broadband (3G) is affordable, significant transformation is already occurring – well suited to Pacific Island situatiions where fixed instrastructure deployment has challenges.

21. R&E landscape All target countries recognise the importance of ICT and Internet access to support Education, at all levels (from primary to tertiary). In addition to USP, more than 40 other post-secondary/tertiary institutions are located in the PICs, which may be part of the membership base of a Pacific regional REN (PacREN) University of South Pacific is a regionally based institution with campuses in 12 PICs. It is an almost unique arrangement of being like a Regional REN, but for a single institution. But there is no NREN in Fiji, ie USP’s main campus in Suva doesn’t network interconnect with the National University of the University of Fiji over shared infrastructure.

22. National infrastructures Only PNG has somethingapproaching an NREN (PNG-Arnet), whichisorganised as a satellite service, of which the hub station islocated in Singapore. It iscomplemented by a 10 Mbpsleased line (on PPC-1) to access the commercial Internet in Sydney. At the national level, the R&E institutions consensus has still to beenhanced There is no arrangement for R&E traffic exchanges withotherPICs, norwith TEIN norAARNet PNG has twosignificantlyunderutilisedcablesystems (one to Australia and one to bothAustralia and Guam)

23. Regional initiatives AusAID (Australia): Pacific Tertiary Education Strategy 2020 (funding: $85 Million over 4 years) to improve access to tertiary education in a number of PICs, including the establishment of a Pacific Regional Research and Education Network Univesity of Hawaii, NSRC and the US-NSF EAGER Award to engage R&E community and other stakeholders for research networking in the PICs.

24. Regional initiatives UNESCO CONNECT-Asia initiative and School on the Internet (SoI), with support of Japan’s WIDE program and a number of APAN Members. UNTL (Timor Leste) is involved both with Connect-Asia and SoI. ACP-Connect study was introduced at the last Connect-Asia meeting in Jakarta (July 2012) with UNESCO, SoI and APAN expressing willingness to help.

25. Roadmap: National level • Three possible scenarios are proposed to match all the possible PIC configurations: • Standard NREN (A) • Shared resources for Education (B) • Internet only (C)

26. Roadmap: National level

27. Roadmap: Regional level

28. Roadmap: Regional level A mix of submarine cables circuits and satellite services is proposed. It supposes that non-ACP countries will be allowed to participate (and contribute) as non-beneficiaries (much like in the TEIN setup). A core ring between Guam, PNG, Sydney, Fiji and Hawaii, complemented with cable circuits to Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomons, Samoa, Palau, Marshalls and Micronesia, and satellite services.

29. Roadmap: Regional level Proposed governance is a regional organisation, similar to the USP setup, of which the country representatives should be the NRENs (A or B types). C type countries will be invited to join at the time they will migrate from C to B or A… Significant effort is needed to explain the benefit and cost efficiency of distinguishing R&E traffic from commercial Internet, justifying dedicated circuits on submarine cables.

30. Roadmap: Connectivity to global R&E R&E access to I2/NLR/CANARIE, TEIN, SINET, APAN Members, GEANT through Guam, Hawaii - and AARNet, REANNZ through Sydney Satellite hub(s) will need also to provide direct R&E peerings (TEIN and WIDE in Singapore or Hong Kong, O3B in Hawaii) Transit negotiations with AARNet, TEIN, I2/NLR, APAN Members, etc. will need to be undertaken at the PacREN level

31. RECOMMENDATIONS Twelve recommendations sorted into three groups are proposed: Architecture : R1 to R3 Regional Cooperation : R4 to R9 Awareness Raising : R10 to R12

32. ARCHITECTURE: Recommendation #1 Promote the need of a NREN strategy in all ACP countries, as a tool for improving the R&E sector and a requirement to participate to any regional network initiative

33. ARCHITECTURE: Recommendation #2 Ensure the ACP countries validate and support the PacREN regional network principle, strategy and architecture. ACP secretariat, together with the EC will need to play a significant role through the broad awareness recommendation

34. ARCHITECTURE: Recommendation #3 Consider mobile broadband penetration as a key support mechanism to reach R&E users where fixed infrastructure deployment has challenges. Take advantage of new paradigms like cloud-based services to concentrate on fundamental network functions not available on the market (eg net+ services)

35. REGIONAL COOPERATION: Recommendations #4, #5, #6 and #7 CooperationwithAusAID, and engagement withtheir 2020 strategy (notingthatAusAID’sstrategydoes not include all ACP countries) CooperationwithUniversity of Hawaii and NSRC for the US-NFS funded EAGER study (Guam and Hawaii shouldplaykeyroles as hubs of a PacREN) Cooperationwith JICA and USP in the adaptation of the satellite components of USP-Net to the new cableavailabilities to concentrate on pure satellite services for off-cablePICs. InterconnectwithJapan via cablesfrom Hawaii or Guam Cooperationwith the educationdelivery programs of UNESCO, SoI and the World Bank’s Global Development Learning Program

36. REGIONAL COOPERATION: Recommendation #8 Cooperation with Asian Development Bank and the World Bank (focus on economic development) which are key actors for new cable deployment (Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomons, etc.). - R&E may act as catalyst or even early adopters of cable infrastructure.

37. REGIONAL COOPERATION: Recommendation #9 Cooperation with SPC (to be replaced), PICs and PIRRC, which may be key players for the administrative, governance & regulatory issues of PacREN. They may also play a key role in the broad awareness raising process.

38. AWARENESS RAISING: Recommendation #10, #11 and #12 Awareness raising of the R&E user community at the local and national levels. Awareness raising of governments and ministries Awareness campaign through workshops/seminars in order to enhance in a coordinated way, the sensitivity to NREN/RREN issues in all possible fora such as telecommunication conferences (like PITA or PTC), R&E events etc.

39. Conclusions • During the four phases of the assessment study, major challenges were identified, including. • Limited economic power • Limited awareness of R&E networking • High telecommunication costs and limited cable footprint • A roadmap is proposed, based on • NREN stage (A, B and C types are possible) • RREN stage (PacREN) made of a cable circuit core infrastructure, complemented with satellite services for sparsely distributed PICs (off-cable countries) • Vigourous awareness raising action is required to support both previous stages