By Daniel Pimienta, Union Latina ([email protected])
The Caribbean Basin has not been left apart of the ongoing network growth within the region. If the user population, except for Puerto Rico and Costa Rica, is still low, infrastructures are in place which make expect further developments in the coming months.
Costa Rica has been for several years a BITNET key location
and, furthermore, hosts the central UUCP node of a pilot project
named HURACAN which offers accesses to various researchers
belonging to different Central American countries via their
interconnected national X25 networks. This project is a result of
a cooperative effort started by Canadian Agencies and completed
by the UNDP.
Puerto Rico is presenting, as a result of years of investments and technical follow-up, a state-of-the-art network linking all the campuses together and with the Internet by high speed lines. It allows students to operate telnet functions at fraction of seconds in several terminal areas spread over the country. CRACIN (Corporation for the National Academic Scientific and Research Network) can now concentrate in user support and make available some time to help its neighbor.
Puerto Rico is heading a sub-regional project, named CUNET for
Caribbean Universities Network, which has put seeds virtually in
all English speaking islands of the Caribbean. CUNET has a star
organized design where UUCP nodes get, by switched connection,
into the Puerto Rico network which gates the traffic toward the
Internet. The user number is reported to have a steady growth in
various countries (for instance Trinidad and Tobago, and
Jamaica). The project is sponsored by OAS which pays for the
expert travelling and the dial-up connections to Puerto Rico.
CRACIN and CUNET contact: Roberto Loran, [email protected]
Cuba is experimenting a spectacular growth of the network. The
island have a traditional strong science and technology sector
and is in good position to present user applications and
scientific data bases. INFO93, a congress planned for May 93 in
La Habana will focus on networking.
Cuba contact: Jesus Martinez, [email protected]
Surprisingly, the French West Indies have stayed aside from the area move. There is a RIO (Orstom network) node, but a 1988 plan to make the University (UAG) joins EARN-France have not yet been implemented. However, moves are underway to make it a playing actor in network related training.
Dominican Republic's REDID was born last may (see hereafter). Also, one of the 25 Dominican universities (PUCMM) is maintaining a PC station connected to the CUNET project and has been planning a BITNET node for some time.
Haiti, was targeted to be part of the REDID creation process. The political turmoils jeopardized the process. Other alternatives, such as training a group of researchers outside the countries, are currently under study to start an action.
University of Nicaragua is maintaining a UUCP node.
Contact: Teresa Ortega, [email protected]
RAW ESTIMATION OF USER FIGURES:
| SERVED |
POTENTIAL |
|
| Costa Rica: |
900 |
2500 |
| Cuba: |
800 |
9500 |
| Cunet: |
100 |
2000 |
| Huracan: |
400 |
4500 |
| Dominican Republic: |
50 |
1000 |
| Nicaragua: |
100 |
1000 |
| Puerto Rico: |
2400 |
3000 |
| TOTAL |
4750 |
23500 |