Participated in the 19th APAN Meeting and the Expert Committee on TEIN2
Expanding and advancing Asian information infrastructures through TEIN and APII

The Minister of ICT, Thailand delivered his keynote address in 2005 APAN.

Many experts from the European Commission and the United States also participated in this conference that opened with the keynote speech by the ICT Minister of the hosting country. This is because Europe and the U.S. have both pursued a strategy of increasing global connectivity by reinforcing ties with the Asia-Pacific region.

Dr. Seo bo-hyun, Mr. Dai Davis, General Manager of DANTE and Mr. Dany Vandrome, Chief of RENATER discussed in the TEIN meeting.

With the development of TEIN and APII, South East Asian countries as well as the North East Asian region have made significant progress in establishing research and education networks connected with TEIN and APII. Among the six ASEM Asia members including Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and China that received the first phase of assistance under TEIN Initiative as part of ASEM project and TEIN2 led by the European Commission, most of them have already either built their own information infrastructure or expected to finalize the research networking project within this year.

Dr. Seo Bo-hyun gave an account of the current issues and future plans with respect to TEIN and APII.

The fourth Expert Committee on TEIN2 held on Jan. 24 was attended by General Manager Dai Davies of DANTE, the Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe, Mr. Dany Vandrome, Chief of RENATER and KISDI researchers. DANTE has a leading role in undertaking a new research networking project known as TEIN2 funded by the European Commission while KISDI and RENATER are jointly participating in the TEIN project. Experts from all the ASEM ASIA member countries (Republic of Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam) attended the committee. Among them was Prof. Wu Jianping of Tsinghua University, Chief of CERNET, China's largest network for education and research. In particular, Australia, Taiwan and APAN demonstrated their pledge to provide an additional assistance to developing countries of South East Asia for increased connectivity.

The participants in this committee discussed the follow-up procedures with respect to the joint bidding under the rules of the European Commission. They also shared views on possible training programs that could meet the needs of developing countries. It was told that the assistance requests made by developing countries mainly centered on Korea, China and Japan. Dr. Seo Bo-hyun, mentioning the enhanced speed of TEIN jointly managed by Korea and France, encouraged member countries actively to utilize the Asia-EU research network. When the speed was confined to less than 45Mbps, the focus of TEIN was mostly put on the joint research activities between Korea and Europe. With the enhanced speed, KISDI and RENATER vowed to help countries in Asia and Europe benefit more from TEIN.

KISDI operating TEIN and APII agreed with participants from CERNET including Prof. Wu Jianping to closely cooperate on the Korea-China APII under the memorandum of understanding between KISDI and CERNET.

KISDI and Kyushu University (Prof. Okamura) jointly won the SC2004 Challenge Award.

During the conference, the Hyeonhae/Genkai Workshop, a meeting of Korean and Japanese network operators and experts was held on Jan. 26. Japanese participants brought up to date on the Japanese networks for research and education as well as the international information infrastructure for research while KISDI discussed the progress it has made in upgrading TEIN and APII and conducting joint researches at a global level. In particular, a detailed account on the SC2004 Challenge Award that Korea-China-Japan jointly won (KISDI, Kyushu Univ. and Tsinghus Univ.) last novermber was given in this workshop. In addition, KISDI and NICT showed their willingness to co-host APII Workshop 2005 in Seoul in association with the 32nd APEC TEL scheduled this September.

This conference also opened the way for recognizing the need for information sharing and collective response efforts among North East Asian countries. Over the past few years, China and Taiwan have stepped up their efforts to establish Giga-class international information infrastructures. And they began to actively participate in the discussions on the North East Asia networking connection and future cooperation that has been mainly led by Korea and Japan.

Furthermore, South East Asian countries have been pushing hard to increase connectivity by building global information infrastructures, which will eventually lead to expanding and advancing APII.