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NETWORKING IN ARGENTINA
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by Eduardo Salom
In the last few years here, in Argentina, we have seen a quick development of the communication networks. The conditions are not the best because the phones lines are noisy, expensive and getting one isn't easy. There are many people on a wating list from more than 10 _years_ and there are even a few who have been waiting for 20 years. The recent privatization of EnTel (the national phone company) may change this, but it could take not less than a year, maybe two.
Today, a local call (less than 30 Km) costs US$ .03/min. A long distance call can cost US$ 2.50/min and an international one up to US$ 5.00/min. >From most phones, to make an international call you need to call an operator to get a line. Sending fax and calling with modems to other countries are not possible from any phone ... Luckily, we don't need an operator to receive incoming calls.
There is also a Public Packet Switching Network (ARPAC). The phone access is limited to 1200 bauds. Direct X.25 connection it's possible up to 9600. It's a good alternative to the phone because it allows almost noise free long distance and international calls. The cost for national traffic is US$ 4/ KiloPacket while the international one costs US$ 14/KiloPacket. The final cost for normal net traffic (file transfer with a protocol, answerbacks, etc. with a 1200 connection) is US$ .45/min for national traffic and US$ 1.45/min for the international one. This includes the cost of the phone call to ARPAC. These prices are for calls during business hours. At night national traffic costs 50% less but there is no reduction in the international tariff.
To decide between a direct phone call and the PPSN isn't easy. The first to analyze is the tariff itself. Sometimes the caller needs to put a long distance call to reach the nearest ARPAC node so this must be added to the cost. Another item to consider is the line noise. Not too heavy line noise can reduce the throughput from 1200 to 300. If the call is done through the phone system the caller pays for connection time so its costs multiplies by 4. The first calculations may indicate that using the phone is less expensive than the PPSN, but this may not be true.
Due to partial deregulation, two companies began to offer VSat services earlier this year. This is the best choice for point to point links once the traffic exceeds 30MB/month. These companies sell only point to point links. Soon, it is expected that some companies will lease links between cities to provide e-mail and data transfer services to low traffic users at lower cost than ARPAC or the phone system.
At first the development of this technology - modems, fax and network technology in general - was possible due to the availability of the phone system, especially in the United States. Then modem prices went down while reliability and speeds went up. Consequently, its utilization becomes an economic alternative in Argentina for different reasons: - As there are less phones than needed the system is overcharged. To complete a call might take several hours and even days. Letting a machine send fax and e-mail at night with reduced tariffs is a very attractive alternative. - Mail is expensive, slow and unreliable. There are fast and reliable private couriers, but these are twice as expensive (US$ 1.50 a simple letter)
In the last few years a few commercial systems and networks have appeared. The oldest and biggest commercial system is Delphi, which has around 7,000 active users. Delphi provides e-mail, FAX and Telex services, access to Dialog, OAG, World Trade Center, NewsNet, etc along with SIG's (Special Interest Groups). None of the other commercial systems has reached the 1,000 users yet. They provide also e-mail, FAX and Telex and gateways to other foreign services like those mentioned above.
Any user of one of those systems is unable to exchange e-mail with other users of other national system nor with users of foreign systems like MCI, EasyLink, GeoNet, etc. To do that one needs a personal account(s) with the required service(s) and to log on to check each mailbox regularly. Several companies use those services to communicate with vendors and clients located mostly in USA and Europe. Few use the gateways to do this. They are calling directly through ARPAC or the phone system.
CompuServe has a local office and a gateway. This service has about 200 users connecting from Argentina. There is also a dozen of BIX users connecting thru ARPAC.
FidoNet is well developed and growing. Now, the country has around 30 nodes and some 700 users. The Latin American region coordinator is at Buenos Aires. They have a very active NetMail and EchoMail exchange with other countries.
There are also 2 UUCP nets: RAN (Red Academica Nacional = Academical National Network) which divides in two subnets: education and medicine. The other net is RECYT (Red Cientifica y Tecnica = Scientific and Technical Network).
RAN now has almost 200 nodes but they don't allow private organizations to use the network. Many of the nodes are kept hidden in the university departments. Only the node administrator knows about it's existence and it is being used as a private mailbox for the department. Now, they don't receive any newsgroup. They use it for e-mail only.
The second and newest net (RECYT) has almost 60 nodes and is growing quickly. They allow private organizations to join the net. Another attraction is that they receive NewsGroups. The distribution of the newsgroups is still a problem as most nodes are MS-DOS machines and they do not yet have the software to handle this service.
Both UUCP nets are connected thru a node which calls uunet twice a day to exchange mail with the rest of the world and receive newsgroups. They also have a gateway to one of the commercial systems and there is an experimental gateway between RECYT and FidoNet.
There are 3 known BITNET nodes feeding from Chile and from a node located in Uruguay. These nodes do not have any local connection with other systems. A message delivered from a local UUCP system must travel to the USA, and pass to BITNET thru a relay before it can travel back to Argentina to reach any of the other nodes. In other words: Chile calls USA, Argentina calls Chile and Uruguay calls Argentina. A BITNET message posted at Uruguay passes thru Argentina and Chile before its arrival to the States.
Several multinational companies have their own private networks. The local branches of these companies are usually linked to their networks thru leased lines (Hewlett Packard, IBM, Dupont and Citicorp, to name some of them). Any company can lease a point to point line but is not allowed to share it with other users. This regulation protects the income of the phone company but keeps communication costs high.