1. NREN vs ISP in Armenia Competition vs Collaboration For countries with low funding from government

2. NREN vs ISP NRENs – Yerevan Physics Institute (since1994) -Academy of Science -Armenian Research Educational Networking Association (ARENA) -ISPs - Arminco, Web, Netsys, ACC, Intarnet, Stalker, Netsoft,…. Armentel(?)

3. NREN vs ISP NREN : Internet provider for sci/edu, Connectivity inside country between sci/edu representative of sci/edu community, channel for funding of sci/edu networking, consulting ISP: for-profit Internet provider for all

4. NREN vs ISP Problems ( in the field under discussion ): MAN or WAN owned by NREN-maintenance, explotation For-profit provision of Internet by NRENs – do or not to do? Sci grants - influence on market Quality of service (questionable for non-profit service – problem for SILK) Sustainability – life after grant Very similar problems with other grants – e.g. DoS grant for Internet in Armenian schools – sustainability is main challenge, much stronger than for sci/edu, due to absence of any experience, resources, etc.

5. NREN vs ISP Possible strategy : Keep Internet channel – if created, it is easy to find a funding from colleague institutes in developed countries (TJNAF, DESY, Universities, ….) and funding agencies (NATO, INTAS, TACIS, other EU programs), even private (Cisco,...), not so difficult to maintain due to localization. Exchange point for sci/edu, and also for ISPs, also exchange point of information and technology, and international contacts (e.g.contacts with CEENet, etc.) Collaboration with ISPs:

6. NREN vs ISP Creation or sharing of infrastructure with ISP by sci/edu grants plus their funding – use, partially, that infrastructure free of charge, problems on explotation to be solved by ISP. The same receipt was already discussed with ISPs for school connectivity grant. Quality of service becomes comparable with that of ISP Flexibility – easy to buy additional bandwidhts (e.g. for videoconference inside city, temporar channels, etc.) Emergency helps from ISP New technology from NREN international collaboration – attractive for local ISP

7. NREN vs ISP Self-funding of NREN other expenses: After SILK installation: Any reasonable low price for Internet, payed by sci/edu gives enough funding for NRENs current expenses Example: YerPhI was able to gather ~ 50k$/year from ~ 30 organizations (90% sci/edu) and solve all problems of maintenance of satellite node, including emergency events, repair of equipment, salaries etc. AUP, other regulations, measures against violations. Support market development and obtain a support from market.