Yuri KORZH
Global Ukraine CEO
President of Ukraine Online Computer Information Agency
yvk@gu.net

Yuri DEMCHENKO
Senior Adviser, Department of Information System, Global Ukraine
Associate Professor, NTUU “Kiev Polytechnic Institute”
demch@gu.net
 

Internet in Ukraine today
Growth of Hosts number in Ukraine
Hostcount for Ukraine (Source: RIPE Database)
Registered Second Level Domains in .UA zone
Major Ukrainian ISPs and their external links
Ukrainian External Connectivity of major Ukrainian ISPs
General view of regional connectivity in Ukraine
Traffic Analysis and External Links characteristics
Academic and Research Network Development in Ukraine
Forming Professional Internet community in Ukraine 
Internet Information Resources development
Development of Internet Market in Ukraine

Main Trends and Projects

From Electronic Communications to Electronic Commerce

Growth of Hosts number in Ukraine for last 17 months
(Source: RIPE Database)

Hostcount for Ukraine (Source: RIPE Database)
 

	1997													1998
Period	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	01		02	03	04	05	06
REAL	6910	7146	7278	8895	10280	10275	11455	11675	11195	13887	13210	13996	15417		16075	16874	17624	17718	19391
CHANGE	333	236	132	1617	1385	-5	1180	220	-480	2692	-677	786	1421		658	799	750	94	1673
CHANGE, %	4,8%	3,3%	1,8%	18,2%	13,5%	0,0%	10,3%	1,9%	-4,3%	19,4%	-5,1%	5,6%	9,2%		4,1%	4,7%	4,3%	0,5%	8,6%

 

Registered Second Level Domains
(and number of 3^rd level domains in .UA zone) (http://park.kiev.ua/inet/)
 

Generic SLD	Geographical SLD
com (156)	cherkassy (3)	dp (107)	km (5)	nikolaev (32)	ternopil (6)
gov (24)	chernigov (30)	if (14)	kr (1)	od (9)	uzhgorod (9)
org (6)	chernovtsy (2)	ivano-frankivsk (6)	ks (2)	odessa (73)	vinnica (8)
net (25)	cn (9)	kh (9)	kv (0)	pl (0)	zaporizhzhe (18)
	crimea (36)	kharkov (133)	lg (30)	poltava (30)	zhitomir (3)
	cv (6)	kherson (14)	lugansk (20)	rovno (3)	zp (19)
	dn (88)	khmelnitskiy (5)	lutsk (13)	sebastopol (9)	zt (1)
	dnepropetrovsk (107)	kiev (384)	lviv (30)	sumy (12)
	donetsk (83)	kirovograd (2)	mk (34)	te (5)

 

Major Ukrainian ISPs and their external links 

 

Internet Service Provider	Connectivity	Connectivity provider	Internal Links in Ukraine
JV Global Ukraine  http://www.gu.net   AS5415	1 Mbps (Satellite)	Digex Ltd., USA	> 30 local ISPs
	2 Mbps	MCI, USA   (via UkrTelecom)
	1 Mbps	TeleGlobe   (via JV InfoCom)
JV InfoCom  http://www.ukrpack.net   AS6846	2 Mbps (Satellite)	TeleGlobe, Canada	UkrPack X.25/Frame Relay Network
			> 20 local ISPs
Lucky Net Ltd.  http://www.lucky.net   AS3254	2 Mbps (Satellite)	Deutsche Telekom	> 20 local ISPs
	512 Kbps (Satellite)	Demos Ltd.	LuckyNet Israel (Israel)
	256 Kbps	JV InfoCom
Relcom-Ukraine  http://www.relc.com   AS3252	512 Kbps	JV InfoCom	> 15 local ISPs
	64 Kbps	UkrTelecom
UkrTelecom  http://www.ukrtel.net   AS6849	2 Mbps	UUNET, London	>10 local ISPs
	2 Mbps	MCI, USA

 

Three other external links are operated by regional commercial and non-profit ISPs

Traffic Analysis and External Links characteristics 

Traffic analysis through main external links shows highly asymmetrical load of incoming and outgoing channels. Ratio between incoming and outgoing traffic can reach 3-4 times during the day.

• The reason is Ukraine’s poor Internet information resources, most information is accessed and retrieved from foreign and, particularly, US Internet sites.
• In respect of this, many ISPs use asymmetrical external links and asymmetrical routing policy. Common practice supposes using some links only for receiving information via proxy server serving all ISP’s user community.
• DirectPC and similar technology is becoming popular (projects Lucky Link, Space Gate, etc.)
• Problem of local high speed access (because of undeveloped local communication infrastructure) restrains growth of Internet users.

Typical traffic statistics for Global Ukraine links is shown on screen shot (http://noc.gu.net/mrtg/).

Academic and Research Network Development in Ukraine 

Building of Academic and Research Network in Ukraine meets a number of problems

• There is not state funding of A&R network development in Ukraine
• At the initial stage some project on building components of A&R network were funded in the frame of International projects and grants (ISF Soros Foundation, TACIS, INTAS, UNDP, PHARE Project under RARE/TERENA activity etc.)
• During 1994-1997 Kiev IP Backbone for Universities and Research Institutes in Kiev have been built in the frame of ISF Soros Foundation Internet Program connecting now 4 nodes located in different regions of Kiev (http://www.isf.kiev.ua/)
• Recently started NATO Networking project "Ukrainian Research and Academic Network, Part One (URAN-1)" will provide money for creating backbone of Ukrainian Universities network.

Universities with full Internet connectivity - regional centers of building A&R Network:

• National Technical University of Ukraine “Kiev Polytechnic Institute” (KPI) (http://www.ntu-kpi.kiev.ua). Campus ATM backbone was built in the frame of TEMPUS/TACIS Program (1995-97)
• National University “Kiev University” (http://www.univ.kiev.ua)
• National University “Kiev Mohyla Academy” (http://www.ukma.kiev.ua)
• University “Lviv Polytechnica” (http://www.polynet.lviv.ua)
• Kharkiv Polytechnic University (http://www.kpi.kharkov.ua)
• Odessa Polytechnic University (http://www.opu.odessa.ua)

• Commercial ISPs intends to cooperate with Universities in development and promotion of new Internet technologies and creation of national Information Resources.
• Good example is cooperation between Global Ukraine and CAD Department of Kiev Polytechnic Institute in Internet Training and User Support as well as in development of Public Information Resources (http://cad.ntu-kpi.kiev.ua/).

Forming Professional Internet community in Ukraine  

After the period of intensive implementation of new Internet technologies Ukrainian professional community became ready to participate in activity of correspondent international professional groups and technical committees:

• TERENA WG dealing with Internationalization problems (WG-MSG, WG-i18n) and User support WG (WG-ISUS, WG-ETINU)
• RIPE WG-TLD, WG-LIR and Anti-spam WG
• RIPE CENTR Project on establishing Council of European National TLD Registries (CENTR) for registration and administration of national TLDs in countries of RIPE Region

Projects undertaken by Ukrainian specialists and companies

• TERENA Pilot project “Multilingual MUAs -The Test” mainly based on Ukrainian and Russian project team (http://park.kiev.ua/multiling/ml-mua/)
• Re-organisation and harmonisation of .UA ccTLD administration (http://park.kiev.ua/inet/)
• Antispamming rulesets developed and successfully implemented among users and clients' community of Global Ukraine (http://noc.gu.net/antispam.html)
• Registartion of Ukrainian Character Set KOI8-U (RFC 2319, http://park.kiev.ua/multiling/koi8-u/) and Netscape Mozilla Ukrainian Language Enabling Project (http://www.mozilla.org/docs/refList/i18n/schedule.html)
• Information Revolution impact on transformation of Ukrainian Society on transition (http://park.kiev.ua/~demch/naph/ois-concept.html)

Ukrainian Internet community is on the way to founding independent ISP Association
whose goals will be

• to provide common technical policy
• operability and interoperability of national networking and information infrastructure
• coordination of local activities with international associations, initiatives and programs on Internet technologies
• lobbying interests of ISPs through Governmental Bodies.

Internet Information Resources development 

Importance of development of useful and significant information resources and business implementation of new IT technologies now widely recognized among major ISPs and IT Companies in Ukraine.
 

Creating public information resources is the first intermediate step for forming Information Society consumer community that will become target for forthcoming EC.

 

Recent the most important events in formation and development of Information resources and directory services in Ukraine are the following

http://park.kiev.ua/   Project Ukrainian Internet Pavilion is granted by International Renaissance Foundation, supported by Global Ukraine and performed by Kiev Polytechnic Institute by involving students in creation of WWW information resources through implementing Cooperative and Contributive Learning model in Professional Education in Internet and IT.
http://el.visti.net/   Ukrainian Internet Resources Search System and Catalog (ElVisti Information Center)  Data base with more than 600,000 documents  Catalog with more than 1000 entries

Development of Internet Market in Ukraine 

Main Trends and Projects

Cooperative projects and market policy coordination between leading ISP and Computer companies

• Founding Ukraine Online Computer Information Agency (http://www.online.com.ua/) as joint project of leading ISP Global Ukraine (http://www.gu.net/) and leader of Computer Industry in Ukraine Kvazar-Micro Company (http://www.kvazar-micro.com/).
• Internet ready PC, supplemental Internet test account

• Major ISPs have started to build information resource centers providing free hosting for interesting and valuable public information resources

• Internet access via Technoligies like DirectPC

• Lucky Link - Project undertaken by major Ukrainian ISP LuckyNet (http://www.ll.net.ua/)
• 15 regional ISPs are connected via Lucky Link Satellite Hub
• SpaceGate – Project realised by leading Ukrainian ISP Global Ukraine

• Project is realised by Global Ukraine and covers one region in Kiev
• Internet Telephony – Project recently have been brought to operation by Global Ukraine

 

From Electronic Communications to Electronic Commerce   General move of leading ISP and IT Companies.
Main players/participating Companies  INT Company  Global Ukraine Kvazar-Micro  Real Problems   Absent of Legal Basis Poor Communication infrastructure Banking System is not ready for EC   Founding Electronic Commerce Association is under discussion.
First Internet shop   (http://www.int-commerce.com/)  Established by INT in the frame of Pilot Project with participation of a number of Ukrainian Banks Company’s Certification Center (CA).

  

This the poster have been presented at Poster Session at INET'98, Palexpo, Geneva, Switzerland, July 20-24, 1998.