Thailand: Snapshot of the Internet around 1990

2012.6.29/7.11/10.1

By Kanchana Kanchanasut

In 1986, I used ITU-T X.28 protocol which is a dial-up X.25 protocol to do remote log in to munnari (University of Melbourne) in Australia and started working with Robert Elz to further develop our connectivity. My colleague, Tomonori Kimura, at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) also did contact his colleagues in Japan at the same time. We ran UUCP on X.25 with Melbourne and University of Tokyo.

In late 1987, we had our first Sun Workstation thus we tested UUCP connections with Australia (Robert Elz) and later on with Rick Adam at UUNET (USA), INRIA (France) and also the University of Tokyo (Japan). We did experiment with TCP/IP inside AIT using Sun Workstations and Fujitsu UNIX PC’s. Stable UUCP connection to the outside world was achieved between AIT and UUNET (USA) due to the quality of the international long distance phone line.

July 1988 marked the birth of the Thai domestic network called, Thai Computer Science Network, with the support from the Australian International Development Agency who provided us with their software called ACSnet (SUNIII) to connect Prince of Songkla Univerisity (PSU), Chulalongkorn University (CU), Thammasat University (TU-Rangsit) and AIT together. All sites had to use UNIX which was very rare at that time, in Thailand. Chiangmai University joined in to the community later on. AIT and PSU acted as gateways to the Australian Academic Research and Education Network (AARNet) using ACSnet through which the TCSnet community could communicate with the global TCP/IP network or the Internet. AIT was the gateway to ACSnet as well as to UUNET with UUCP at the same time. With the adoption of ACSnet, dot TH and a Class C IP address were applied for and delegated to AIT in June 1988. The operation of TCSnet gateway at AIT was under the care of Pensri Charoenchai. Email addresses were provided to academic colleagues both within and outside AIT with dial-up accounts to AIT.

A workshop was organized by AIT in December 1991 attended by all Internet pioneers of Thailand where it was agreed to push for a leased line from Chulalongkorn University to UUNET using TCP/IP and dot TH structure together with its set of rules were drafted. In May 1992, Thammasat University (main campus) became another gateway to ACSnet.

In 1992, Chulalongkorn University connected itself with a leased line connection to UUNET in the US with TCP/IP. The first PING to the US from Thailand was on July 16, 1992 with 9600 bps which was upgraded to 64 kbps in 1993. Members of TCSnet gradually migrated to TCP/IP and connected themselves to the gateway at Chulalongkorn University to form a network of Thai universities called, THAINET. Subsequently dot TH registry was moved to Chulalongkorn University.

During 1986-92, there was also another project under the leadership of the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC), to connect local universities by X.25 (Chulalongkorn University, Kasetsart University, AIT, King Mongkut Institute of Technology at Lat Krabang and King Mongkut Institute of Technology at Thonburi). In 1992, the project adopted TCP/IP over X.25 and achieved the desired connectivities beyond what originally planned. Within the same year, NECTEC launched a Thai Social, Academic and Research Network (ThaiSarn) as a country-wide Internet project with a second link from Thailand to UUNET in 1993 at 64 kbps. All members of TCSnet were inclusive in ThaiSarh and achieved reliable international connectivity through gateways at Chulalongkorn University and NECTEC.

By 1995, with the success of the two research and education networks, the Internet in Thailand started to receive much attention and demand from the public at large. The Communications Authority of Thailand (currently CAT Telecom Plc.) was convinced to issue operating licenses to commercial ISPs which started their operations in February (Internet Thailand) and June (KSC) respectively.

The research and education network in Thailand was soon expanded with funding support from the then Ministry of University Affairs where a new R&E network serving Thai Universities called University Network (UniNet), designed by Dr. Yunyong Teng-amnuay of Chulalongkorn University, was launched in 1996 with a total of 4 Mbps link to the global Internet. ThaiSarn and UNINET jointly formed ThaiREN (Thai Research and Education Network) in 2005.

The domain name registration task was jointly provided by Chulalongkorn University and AIT until 1999 where a not for profit THNIC organization started to form.