Section 2.2.2 PACific COMmunications network (PACCOM) Project - elaboration

2012.7.5

Hawaii High Performance Internet Connection Proposal, NSF Award #9876406 stated "...In the late 1980s the Department of Information and Computer Science of the University of Hawaii was partially funded by NASA to establish a new international regional network, PACCOM. PACCOM was intended to develop a sound network infrastructure in the Pacific in order to meet agency connectivity needs in the region. By implementing links between Hawaii and key locations in the Pacific Rim, PACCOM was instrumental in establishing the first academic and research Internet connections to New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong -- in the era before commercial services were available......"

Torben Nielson was the project manager of the PACific Communications network(PACCOM) Project funded by NASA

in 1989. Later, NSF and DoE also funded, and NSF became the primary agency for the project in 1991 for two years.

The project detail had the following abstrct;

This award( NSF #9106198) supports infrastructure for research and education computer communications networking in the Pacific region. It is made to the University of Hawaii Manoa for operation of the Pacific Communications Network(PACCOM). PACCOM is a regional initiative in the Pacific area with the objective of providing common communications servicaes tot he academic and research sector of each member nation (currently, the US, through the University of Hawaii's computer network, Australia, Japan, Korea and New Zealand). PACCOM circuits and operations support the connections among the research and academic networks of the member countries, but not the networks themselves. NSF, NASA and DoE share the costs of the US portions of the international circuits, in accordance with the guidelines of the Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networking. PACCOM circuits terminate in the US at a multiple-agency interconnection point at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountainview, California. The NSFNET node at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California connects to the multi-agency interconnection point.

The following five countries in the Pacific joined PACCOM Project with their funding for the half-circuit;

- Australia(AARNET) to NASA Ames in 1989

- Japan(WIDE Project) to University of Hawaii in 1989

- Korea(HANA/SDN) to University of Hawaii in 1990

- New Zealand to NASA Ames in 1989

- Hong Kong(CUHK) to University of Hawaii in 1991

ERNET in India made the separate arrangement to make the least line connection to UUNET in the USA with UNDP funding, which funded the half circuit. UUNET contributed the other half circuit.

Throughout 1990s, each link increased its bandwidth. Then in 1997, the new NSF project, TransPac, made the

arrangement with Asia Pacific Advanced Network(APAN) to connect between USA and Asia through Japan.

APAN-JP was the counterpart of the TransPac project.

Reference

[Hawaii 1998] University of Hawaii, Hawaii High Performance Internet Connection, NSF Award #9876406, 1998. http://www.hawaii.edu/internet2/proposal.pdf

[NSF 1992] National Science Foundation, Award#9106198 - Pacific Communications Network, 1992. http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=9106198.