A changing Mongolia joins the global Internet community
Photo: Geoff Long
A changing Mongolia joins the global Internet community
Photo: Geoff Long
If you were to pick a country least likely to join the global communications network a few years ago, Mongolia would have been an easy choice. With deteriorating or non-existent infrastructure, a tightly controlled media, and a one-party state political system, the country was isolated from much of the world. Yet today Mongolia is embracing the Internet and its free-flow of information as quickly as its fragile economy will allow. This despite a severe lack of finances and an outdated telecommunications system.
Mongolia's first Internet host was born when local software and networking company Datacom was assisted through IDRC's Pan Asia Networking program. The PAN program aims to fund communications infrastructure and research projects in developing countries across Asia. In turn, this infrastructure can enable content-based subnetworks in line with the centre's research priorities and allow individuals, development institutions, and other organizations to share information.
From that first partnership, which resulted in a low-cost dial-up Internet connection in 1994, has evolved a dedicated satellite connection providing full Internet access. More importantly, it has provided the technical infrastructure necessary for other technical and content programs. Today, users include the Prime Minister through to people in remote areas, development agencies, universities, and the new businesses of a fledgling market economy.
Mongolia's transition to a market system has not been easy. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so too did many of the subsidies and trade that had been underpinning its economy. According to Surenguin Badral, the foreign policy adviser to the Prime Minister, one of the central tasks of the new government is to reduce its spending and at the same time improve infrastructure. However, with limited funds and many priorities, including the provision of basic services such as electricity to remote areas, the task is long-term. Says Badral, "In this way the Internet network that the country is starting to build up is most important in terms of first of all reducing costs and secondly communicating with the country people and getting information from remote places."
When Datacom, a former state-owned enterprise, first had the idea to start an Internet service, lack of funds was the major stumbling block. Datacom's director-general, Dr Dangaasuren Enkhbat, says that without IDRC's offer of technical and financial assistance, the project would not have been possible. Just as important, he says, is that it provided an example to other organizations of what was possible and a technical base for developing other projects.
Mongolia was the first site chosen in the PAN program. In this regard, the PAN-Mongolia project can be seen as a pilot to assess how assistance might also be offered to other developing countries in the region. The country was chosen for a number of reasons. Having only recently made the transition to a market economy, it is in desperate need of information from the rest of the world and ready to re-forge links with neighbouring countries. Datacom, the only domestic provider of data communications services, also had a team that could undertake the demanding technical requirements needed to become an Internet provider. And as a remote country without Internet access, it offered a chance to study the technical challenges that would be applicable to other countries in the region.
Paul Wilson, a consultant from Australian-based networking company Pegasus Networks, was involved in the project as a technical advisor in the preliminary stages. He was impressed by the technical capabilities at Datacom at the time and, as a result, the likelihood of success. As he notes, "they were clearly out there and ready."
However, he also points out that the conditions that they had to work with were poor, although similar to many other developing countries in Asia. Problems included unreliable telephone lines, telephone exchanges based on non-standard and outdated Russian technology, erratic power, and few computers. However, even at this early stage, Datacom had built up its own messaging system, adapted from Russian software, which was robust enough to cope with the conditions. According to Wilson, the system, called PC-Mail, was based on a file transfer model and seemed very reliable as well as accommodating Mongolia's Cyrillic-based script. "It was quite an achievement that the PC-Mail system was all local development. They also had a clear awareness that they could adapt it to UUCP protocols," he says, referring to the Unix-based program that can be used for transferring files on the Internet.
This occurred in late 1994, when Datacom installed a dial-up gateway system based on UUCP protocols that allowed for the connection of its domestic system to the Internet. The system was compatible with Internet email and newsgroups, and initially these were transferred twice weekly by connecting to the Institute of Global Communications (IGC) in the US. As the system gained new users, the dial-up frequency was increased. However, Datacom's goal was to have a permanent Internet connection.
The most economical and feasible connection turned out to be via satellite. A meeting with Sprint concluded in an agreement to cooperate on a 128k leased line satellite link via PanAmSat 2. Funding for the link came from a government loan and the US National Science Foundation (NSF), which agreed to pay the leasing costs if Datacom would give Mongolia's educational institutions free Internet access during 1996/7. Satellite communications equipment from Comstream was installed in late 1995, along with a Sun Netra server and Sun workstation to host Web, FTP, and Gopher servers, culminating in the opening ceremony for the country's first permanent Internet connection in January and a Mongolian web site in March of 1996.
Its Internet infrastructure is far from perfect, but nevertheless Mongolia has improved its communications capability dramatically in just two years. So much so that it has attracted the attention of other developing countries facing similar problems. However, Datacom head Dr Enkhbat is realistic about the task ahead, likening the current situation to having only one foot on the ground. Two feet, he claims, will be when local content begins to appear from various sectors of the community. Already, though, he is thinking of how to start some sort of multimedia centre capable of developing such material.
Even with its first Internet node in place, Mongolia still has a lot of work ahead of it. As Dr Enkhbat comments, perhaps the hardest task is now to create a local infrastructure to spread the benefits of Internet to the wider community. However, the early signs are encouraging and there are a number of projects in progress aiming to build on the PAN Mongolian groundwork.
Geoff Long is a freelance journalist reporting from Asia.
Resource Person:
Dr Dangaasuren Enkhbat, Director-General, Datacom Co., Ltd (Data Communications Systems Company Limited), POB-385, Central Post Office, Ulanbaatar-13, Mongolia. Tel: (976 1) 32-02-10. Fax: (976-1) 32-02-10. Email: enkhbat@magicnet.mn