All secondary schools nationwide get free access to the Internet

Behind-the-scenes efforts put Thailand ahead of region

All public and private secondary schools throughout Thailand now have free Internet access through SchoolNet thanks to extensive "behind-the-scenes' work that has enabled free dial-up access from every province in the country as of today - a first in the Asean region.

On Monday, Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn declared the network open during a private visit to the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec), the agency that has been the driving force behind the network.

SchoolNet offers Internet access and uses the PPP protocol and it is now accessible free-of-charge by all school members who may dial a single special number from anywhere in the country. No long-distance phone charge is involved.

SchoolNet began as a pilot project in 1995, according to Nectec Director Professor Pairash Thajchayapong, who added: "the SchoolNet project is a substantial component for the survival of Thailand in the 21st Century if we plan to be seriously educating our children for a better future of the nation.'

The network was enabled without any specific national funding - thanks to other resources and projects and much behind the scenes work. Resources include the ThaiSarn network and Nectec's own Network Testing Laboratory (NTL), and later the "Golden Jubilee Network Project' (Kanchanapisek Network).

"We've never received any formal budget for SchoolNet,' said Dr Thaweesak Koanantakool who is Deputy Director of Nectec responsible for computer networking infrastructure.

"However, we're fortunate enough to piggy back SchoolNet on ThaiSarn network; which can squeeze part of the resources to help schools. In the beginning, we've received assistance in kind from many parties, for example: Nectec's own Network Technology Laboratory (NTL), Compaq, Microsoft, Intel, Powell Computers and Cisco,' Dr Thaweesak explained.

In 1997, SchoolNet project received additional supports from both NTL budget and NITC budget of approximately 2 million baht to expand the access network to 120 lines. Number of participating schools grew to 200, and more than 25 schools are connected as school nodes, he noted.

ThaiSarn (Thai Social/Scientific, Academic and Research Network) is the country's largest league of higher-education institution Internet, also run and partially funded by Nectec, a center in the National Science and Technology Development Agency.

Dr Thaweesak said that government funding of the Golden Jubilee project presented "a total breakthrough.'

This project, celebrating His Majesty's 50th anniversary of accession to the throne in 1996, was an initiative of Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, and the funding enabled Nectec to pilot the nationwide access network in a sizable scale.

Nectec invested nearly 40 million baht for the network servers, routers, Bangkok access point and all 20 nodes or points of presence (POP) in provinces, as well as also paid one million baht a month to the Telephone Organisation of Thailand (TOT) - 12 million baht per year - for the cost of leased lines and telephone lines, Dr Thaweesak explained.

He added that later he had been approached by both TOT and the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) on the possibility of joining together to create a school network with true nationwide access.

"The concept was consulted with Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn and we got her approval. We then went ahead with the implementation of the project since early January 1998, on Children's Day.'

A working group was then set up between Nectec, CAT and TOT to work out the detailed plans for the new network, code named 'SchoolNet@1509' and the TOT agreed to expand the domestic network to 128kbps to all of the twenty provinces as well as adding more lines to each province to a total of 15 lines per province, Dr Thaweesak said.

CAT, meanwhile, agreed to support the international bandwidth of 512kbps to the new SchoolNet hub. Nectec agreed to develop a sophisticated user management software to make sure that all computer accounts would be sharing the resources fairly.

Later, in February this year, the engineering work on SchoolNet and 1509 network was on its way. TOT expanded all the leased circuits and added more lines. CAT opened a 512k circuit to the new SchoolNet hub while Nectec separated SchoolNet from ThaiSarn and form its own TCP/IP Autonomous System.

The access network was served by a well-planned time-sharing scheme so that as many as 1,500 schools can be registered with up to three user accounts each to utilise this facility. The total of 420 lines were provided: with 300 lines available as true local call from any provinces outside Bangkok and 120 lines for Bangkok and surrounding provinces.

Both TOT and CAT agreed to subsidise their own fees, which otherwise would be about 24 million baht a year for TOT and 8 million baht per year for CAT and Nectec's NTL will continue to serve SchoolNet by absorbing the manpower and hardware operations and maintenance in its ThaiSarn-III project, Dr Thaweesak said.

"Having the connection is only the beginning.' said Prof. Pairash, "but it is a very crucial beginning.'

The National Information Technology Committee (NITC) recently set up a working group on "Enhancing the School Networks' which consists of three major ministries to work out the on-going action plans. The three ministries are Science, Education and Communications.

"Apart from the network connection, which Nectec has provided the strong leadership, we need to develop teachers and produce really good and useful contents to be put into the computer networks.', Prof Pairash stressed.

NITC appointed NECTEC/CAT/TOT/Ministry of Education (Department of General Education) to work out the plan which includes the human resource development and creating attractive and useful content.

Schoolnet: <http://www.school.net.th>

Golden Jubilee: <http://kanchanapisek.or.th/>For details on the Princess' IT Projects, please contact Dr.Chadamas Thuvasetthakul at email address: chadamas@nectec.or.th.

Next week: How the school net work was built