INTERNATIONAL NETWORKING AND GREENNET
A Personal View
by Mitra


GreenNet Background
===================

My involvement with the international aspect of GreenNet can be dated from December 1985 when a group of us met up in Hamburg. I'm not sure any of us knew why we were there but the common thing was knowing that we needed to use the power of global communication to serve global causes such as the protection of our environment, reducing the threat of nuclear suicide, eliminating oppression of minorities, etc.

Each of the participants came from a different personal bias; for instance, the US Greens came mainly from a political viewpoint having organized anti-apartheid demonstrations on Delphi the previous summer. The Germans were biased towards the German Green Party. I was mainly concerned with global environmental issues. What developed over the three days, however, was a desire to cooperate-operate
internationally, thereby helping each other to achieve the aims of the projects we were involved with.


Consultancy role
================

We all agreed that in many ways the groups we desire to serve are technologically disenfranchised: they don't have the expertise, resources or money to use all the benefits of modern technology available to commercial concerns. A large company would have its own staff to keep in touch with modern technology and small companies hire in consultants. The environmental or peace group has neither its own technological staff nor the money to hire consultants. It was clear that those of us with both the technical expertise and desire to help, must provide access to the services that these groups need in order to be effective in the information age.


Problems of working internationally
===================================

A common concern was how to work internationally; for instance, I can arrange for access to communications services in England, navigate around the maze of telecom regulations, software and modems and basically put someone online. However, for me to try and achieve that for a group working here, in Germany and the U.S. would be difficult.

Those of you in the relatively liberal US probably don't realize the restrictions on what modems you can use where, etc., that prevail all over Europe! To achieve a higher level of connectivity, we need committed people all over the world who can make the local connections for us. This then becomes a good case for "Thinking Globally, Acting Locally." We have already made a few links in this way and I see this role expanding. I also see this as a valid model for commercial communications consultancy.

A few examples of the differences that exist across Europe may help to explain what I mean.


Modems
======

In England we can use any approved modem. These are either acoustic or direct connect at CCITT frequencies (different from Bell standards except at 1200 baud) and come at 300 1200/75 or 1200 baud (also known as V23, V21, and V22). A V22 modem costs about 350 pounds here in England compared to say 180 dollars in
the US.

In most of the rest of Europe you are supposed to use an acoustic coupler or rent from the PTT (for a fortune!) BUT if you fill in the form and say you have an acoustic coupler then you can get away with anything.


NUI
===

What's an NUI I hear from the yanks! Well an NUI is a Numeric Identifier which identifies you to the packet network (similar I believe to an ITT Worldcom number). This means everyone has to have an account with the carrier--no reverse charging over here. This drastically reduces the number of people who use a packet-only host, but also drastically reduces the number of hackers.

Of course, as you travel around Europe or even around England you need different NUI's so you either dial internationally into your own carrier node or subscribe in a dozen or so countries. Each account has an initial set up cost and an associated monthly fee as well as a fee for usage based on online time or the number of characters sent or received. In most countries you have to provide a local address in order to subscribe, or you can only get a guest account which can take up to a month to set up, by which time you've already left!


Character sets
==============

Apart from the language barriers--often dealt with by using English--in Europe we can't agree on either character sets or keyboards. Across Europe we have various accents on different letters and different symbols for money. So, if I use the character "#" it comes out as a pound sign on my screen, and this "$" is dollars, but I can only guess how it shows on your screens.


Currency
========

Having different currencies makes paying for services difficult. If I see a price on a system in Deutsche marks it is relatively difficult for me to convince the host that I will pay them. Each time I pay, I have to go and buy an international money order in their currency at the current rate of exchange and then post it to them. Very few hosts take credit card numbers; we are a long way behind the US in the adoption of plastic money.


Green Conferences
=================

Given the difficulty of communicating internationally, most people like to subscribe to a host in their own country. So in GreenNet we have bulletin boards (not conferences yet unfortunately) on GEO1 in Germany, GEO2 in England, and now on UNISON in the U.S. (which does provide excellent conferencing facilities). All of these arrangements are autonomous of course, and I have started (in the last month) porting the *relevant* information from system to system.


Reaching the right people
=========================

Of course, all these problems just make the uptake by the people who we feel should be using CC that much slower. Confusion around the above problems is added to all the things mentioned in the "Resistance to CC" article in last month's Netweaver (Volume 2, Number 3) and compounded by the lack of a good CC host in all European countries but Sweden. This means that the number of CC users can almost be counted on one hand.

Part of my work has been trying to guide people working within environmental groups through this maze. It is as much a lesson in human communication as a lesson in computer communication. I wish anyone else trying the same thing good luck.

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Author's note: I am a freelance communications consultant working out of London, England. I split my time about equally between paying and non-paying (non-profit) clients. I work with the use of communications technology (CC, e-mail, and database) in a variety of situations. At present I am among other things working with the marketing of GeoNet and the integration of non-profit groups into this service. I have my own company: Planet-Tree Communications Ltd. and can be contacted on GEO1, GEO2, UNISON or DELPHI in all cases as "MITRA" or by phone at 1-267-0188.