1. Quantifying the Global Digital Divide
Warren Matthews and Les Cottrell (SLAC) Presented at the ESCC/Internet2 Techs Workshop. Lawrence, Kansas
August 3-7, 2003.

2. What is the Digital Divide?
Often cited
Access to Computers
Technical Education
In this talk
International networking and network performance for the developed vs developing countries.

3. The PingER Project (1/2) 36 monitoring sites in 14 countries
Measures, analyzes & reports round-trip times, losses, availability, throughput ...
Low impact on network << 100bits/s, important for many DD sites
Covers 75+ countries
99% of Internet connected population

4. The PingER Project (2/2)
Provide historical (> 8yrs) and near real-time quantitative information
Aggregate by regions, affiliations etc.
How bad is performance to various regions?
Trends: who is catching up, falling behind?
Compare vs. economic, financial indicators etc.
Use for trouble shooting setting expectations, presenting to funding bodies

5. Deployment

6. 100x improvement in 5 years
North America
Europe 5x
Middle East
Africa
Russia 2x
Note log
scale
Central Asia

7. Average Packet Loss Between Regions in July 2003
From To
North America
Europe
Latin America
Russia
East Asia
Australasia
Middle East
Africa
Balkans
Caucasus
Baltics
South Asia
Central Asia
North America (17)
0.4% (420)
0.4% (361)
1.9% (64)
1.37% (37)
1.1% (89)
0.7% (15)
1.4% (31)
11.5% (6)
0.5% (49)
1.9% (3)
0.8% (29)
2.87% (16)
5.6% (3)
Europe (10)
0.4% (184)
0.3% (213)
1.2% (56)
2.0% (24)
1.0% (58)
0.8% (8)
1.1% (23)
18.6% (5)
0.5% (33)
0.7 (18)
1.8% (11)
Latin America* (1)
0.6% (19)
0.2% (13)
1.4% (19)
1.7% (1)
3.9% (5)
Russia (2)
1.3% (40)
1.6% (41)
2.4% (7)
0.1% (4)
1.5% (12)
2.7% (2)
1.4% (4)
16% (2)
1.0% (6)
2.5% (4)
East Asia (2)
0.6% (40)
0.4% (38)
0.5% (4)
0.8% (14)
0.8% (4)
0.4% (6)
0.7% (4)
Australasia (1)
0.2% (22)
0.2% (23)
1.0% (4)
0.5% (2)
0.9% (6)
0.4% (2)(
0.6% (2)
0.2% (3)
Good Connectivity (packet loss <1%)
Acceptable (<2%)
* = Data from April 2003
Medium (<5%)
Poor (<12%)
Very poor (>12%)
No data

8. Minimum Average Packet Loss Between Regions in July 2003
From To
North America
Europe
Latin America
Russia
East Asia
Australasia
Middle East
Africa
Balkans
Caucasus
Baltics
South Asia
Central Asia
North America (17)
0.0% (420)
0.0% (361)
0.0% (64)
0.0% (36)
0.0% (89(
0.3% (15)
0.0% (31)
1.2% (6)
0.0% (49)
0.2% (3)
0.1% (29)
0.5% (16)
1.6% (3)
Europe (10)
0.0% (184)
0.0% (213)
0.0% (56)
0.1% (24)
0.0% (58)
0.1% (8)
0.0% (23)
1.6% (5)
0.0% (33)
0.1% (18)
Latin America* (1)
0.1% (19)
0.1% (13)
0.1% (4)
Russia (2)
0.1% (40)
0.2% (41)
0.3% (7)
0.0% (4)
0.1% (12)
1.6% (2)
0.4% (4)
0.4% (6)
0.7% (4)
East Asia (2)
0.0% (40)
0.1% (38)
0.2% (6)
0.1% (14)
0.1% (6)
Australasia (1)
0.1% (22)
0.1% (23)
0.2% (4)
0.1% (2)
0.3% (2)
0.4% (2)
Minimum may be a better indication
of what the connection is capable of.
Good Connectivity (packet loss <1%)
Acceptable (<2%)
* = Data from April 2003
Medium (<5%)
Poor (<12%)
Very poor (>12%)
No data

9. Turkey (1) Egypt (1) Iran (4) Jordon (1) Israel (1)
Performance between SLAC and the University
of Cairo improved dramatically in late May
Recently added second node in
Turkey has much lower packet loss
Turkey (1)
Egypt (1)
Iran (4)
Jordon (1)
Israel (1)

10. SLAC to Middle East Sprintlink Teleglobe TCI Level 3 Flag Telecom RAYA
Turkey
Geant
SLAC
Israel
Sprintlink
Iran
Teleglobe
Jordan
ESnet
TCI
Iran2
Level 3
Egypt
Flag Telecom
RAYA

11. NREN Core Network Size (Mbps-km)
Abilene - 114,148,867 Mbps km
100M Nl
Leading
10M
Logarithmic Scale Fi
Advanced Cz Hu Es 1M Ch
In Transition It Pl Gr
100k Ir
Lagging
10k Ro 1k
Ukr
100
This slide taken from David Williams ICFA/SCIC talk on Serenate report.
Data from the TERENA Compendeum.

12. NREN Core Network Size (Mbps-km)
2000
10M
2001 1M
100K
10K 1K
100

13. Loss Comparisons with Development (UNDP)
Weak correlation with Human Development or GDP
Even weaker with education & literacy

14. Network Readiness
NRI from Center for International Development, Harvard U.
Improved correlation (0.23 => 0.46) by:
Using derived throughput ~ MSS / (RTT * sqrt(loss))
Fit to exponential

15. Improving, but … Gap is widening
Demanding Scientific applications are built to utilize very high performance network
Grid Computing
Interactive analysis
Collaborators in developing countries will continue to miss out

16. Summary (1/2) Performance is improving all over
Performance to developed countries are orders of magnitude better than to developing countries
Poorer regions 5-10 years behind
Poorest regions Africa, Caucasus, Central & S. Asia
Some regions are catching up (e.g. Latin America, SE Europe), others (e.g. Africa) falling further behind

17. Summary (2/2) Bandwidth, Engineering
Well organized National Research Network (NRN)
Tuning
Education and Training
Funding

18. Funding Funding for PingER runs out this year
Many agencies/organizations have expressed interest in this work but none can (or are allowed to) fund it.
ICTP/eJDS are looking into EU money
Also small grants to train remote collaborators

19. Recommendations of Trieste
To devote resources to monitor in real time the connectivity of research and educational institutions in developing countries and to encourage (and devote resources to) the development of the connectivity.

20. Further Work Monitoring from ICTP
More targets
Other communities
Monitor transitions to better networks
Further Analysis
Workshop in Trieste in November

21. Links This talk IEPM Home Page ITU eJDS ICFA SCIC
Also see this months issue of Scientific American

22. Credits
Enrique Canessa and Hilda Cerdeira
David Williams
Ken Flamm