2005.8.

29

A Brief History of the Internet in Korea

Kilnam Chon1, Hyunje Park2, Kyungran Kang3, and Youngeum Lee4

1
Department of Computer Science, KAIST, Daejeon 305-701, South Korea
2
ZooinNet Co., Seoul 137-867, South Korea
3
College of Information Technology, Ajou University, Suwon 443-749, South Korea
4
Department of Media Art & Science, KNOU, Seoul 110-791, South Korea

Abstract
The TCP/IP network in South Korea started in May 1982, one of the earliest Internet deployments in
the world. The initial TCP/IP network, called SDN, consisted of two nodes with 1200 bps bandwidth.
SDN served the research and education community with primary focus on network research, and had
international links with UUCP initially. The international links cover several countries in Asia, which is
called AsiaNet, as well as Europe and North America.
In parallel to TCP/IP development, the communications on personal computers using bulletin boards
and others also proliferated. These two network developments along availability of WWW made
explosive Internet growth in 1990s. These developments resulted in the leading broadband country
with various applications.
The Internet is becoming the social infrastructure in Korea lately with many aspects of daily life are
done through the Internet including social and political activities. Convergence of the Internet with
telecommunications and broadcasting is taking place now.

1. The Pre-Internet Period

Basic Internet Technologies and Concepts Proposed

The 1960s was the period that saw the birth of technologies and concepts that were to become the
foundation of the Internet. In 1965, the concept of "packet switching, which was to become the
fundamental technology of the Internet, was proposed.

Domestic Network Developments

During the period between the late 1960s and 1970s, efforts to construct domestic computer networks
were launched in countries such as France, UK, and USA. The most notable one is
ARPANET(Advanced Research Project Agency Network) in USA in 1969.
2. Birth of the Korean Internet, SDN

SDN Begins Operation

Korea's first Internet system, SDN(System Development Network) began its operations on 15 May
1982. A computer at the Department of Computer Science at Seoul National University was connected
to another computer at Korea Institute of Electronics Technology(KIET) in Gumi (Presently ETRI,
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) via a 1200 bps leased line, and in January
1983, a third computer at KAIST(Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) was connected
to the SDN, which resulted in a system that could be described as a network of computers. Since
TCP/IP is one of the communications protocol used among the computers connected to the SDN, this
can be noted as Korea's first Internet.

UUCP and USENET

SDN was connected to the mcvax in the Netherlands in August, 1983 by using UUCP(Unix-to-Unix-
Copy), and in October of the same year, it was connected to the hplabs in the United States. Since
UUCP was a protocol that was already installed in UNIX computers, there was the advantage of not
having to install additional protocols, and thus could be expanded not only to overseas computers but
also to domestic computer nodes with relative ease.

In the U. S., CSNET(Computer Science Network), a network that connected universities and research
institutions that had not participated in ARPANET, had been constructed. SDN was connected to
CSNET in December 1984, and this connection was utilized as a forum for exchange of technology
until SDN was formally connected to the U.S. Internet in 1990. However, services such as the FTP
could not be used because of the U.S. government's restrictions on connections to the ARPANET.
Thus, only e-mail and news(USENET) services were available with USA. Moreover, because of the
extreme high cost of international phone lines, a large portion of the USENET data had to be received
in magnetic tape format by regular postal mail rather than via online connections.

Hangeul e-mail
In 1983, a Masters thesis on the development of a mail system using the Korean character set was
reported in KAIST, and experiments on e-mail using the Korean character set was initiated. In 1985 a
Korean e-mail program and a Korean editor program, called hvi was developed, enabling people to
send and receive e-mail using Korean characters through SDN. In addition, in May 1984, Dacom
began its commercial e-mail service through DACOM-net.

AsiaNet
From 1983, SDN was connected to various sites in Asia in addition to North America(hplabs and
seismo in USA, CDNNET in Canada), and Europe(mcvax in the Netherlands). The network linking
Asian countries was called AsiaNet, and included Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and Singapore.
3. Global Internet Connection, early 1980s

Use of the .kr Domain and IP Address

In the mid-80s, the progression of a series of critical events enabled the Internet in Korea to
meaningfully participate in the global Internet. In July 1986, the first IP address(128.134.0.0) for Korea
was assigned. In 1986, rules for second and third level domains under the .kr domain were
established and the country code top level domain to represent Korea, .kr, was formally in operation.
Also, computers in KAIST and others were registered as the domain name server for the .kr
domain(for example, sorak.kaist.ac.kr) establishing the infrastructure for allowing not only domestic but
also international open access to the computers using .kr as its domain name.

Establishment of Internet Policy Centers

As the use of the Internet expanded to domestic and then to the international networks, there was a
need to establish a mechanism to systematically and efficiently manage Korea's domestic Internet use.
Thus the ANC(Academic Network Committee) was formed in 1988 as the association that would
perform this function. The ANC was composed of the ANC Steering Committee, consisting of
representatives of ANC and other necessary committee members, and its technical sub-committee,
the SG-INET, consisting of members involved in the everyday operations of networks. The ANC
assumed the role of representing the Korean Internet society, and was involved in managing the use
and assignment of domestic domain names and IP addresses as well as connections with overseas
networks, and represented Korea in international network associations. The ANC changed its name to
KNC (Korea Network Committee) in 1994 and then to NNC(Number and Name Committee)in 1998,
and continued to operate as a civil organization establishing and recommending domestic Internet
policies.

PC Communications
In addition to efforts to provide network services centered on the Internet, another type of network
service was developed in the 1980s. This was the PC Communications, which began in 1984 as
Dacom's Hangeul Mail, and then was consolidated in 1986 as Chollian. The KETEL(Korea Economic
Daily Telepress) service that began in 1988 was reorganized as Hitel and became the most prominent
PC communications service. This type of online communication using the PC communications
operated as a separate service independent from the Internet until 1995 when regular PC network
users were able to connect to the Internet using commercial networks. The most notable significance
of the PC communications is that it contributed to the development of the concept of online
communities.
The PACCOM Project
In 1989, the University of Hawaii was the focal point of the plan for PACCOM(Pacific Communications
Networking Project), connecting Australia, Hawaii, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand. In Korea, many
member institutions of SDN agreed to jointly fund the 56 Kbps leased line to Hawaii, and established
an organization named HANA for this purpose. In March 1990, a computer at KAIST was connected to
the University of Hawaii via satellite at 56 Kbps, and the HANAnet was constructed. Until then,
charges for international connections to UUCP, and CSNET were based on the amount of data
packets. Thus, international Internet connections were highly limited. But after the establishment of
connections with PACCOM people could use it with relatively little limitations. Data traffic figures for
Internet applications during this time show the highest usage in FTP, followed by Mail, Telnet, Archie,
and DNS. In August 1992, The main gateway equipment and the operation of the HANAnet and SDN
were transferred from KAIST to KT(Korea Telecom). Thenceforth, HANAnet of the KT research center
gave birth to KORNET, KTs commercial Internet services. Since the construction of HANAnet, SDN
was used to designate domestic networks and HANAnet was used to designate networks connected
to the global Internet, and the name SDN slowly lost recognition, resulting in the decision by ANC in
1993 to no longer use the SDN name.

PCCS(Pacific Computer Communications Symposium 1985)

In 1985, a conference focusing on computer networks, PCCS(Pacific Computer Communications
Symposium), which was one of the world's first conferences on the Internet, was held in Seoul, with
approximately 300 Internet experts participating from Asia, Europe and North America.
Considering that the next global conference on the Internet was held in the early 1990s, this
conference was a highly advanced conference. This also displays the active and leading role played
by Korea in the global Internet field. In addition, the PCCS provided the impetus for the annual
meeting of JWCC(Joint Workshop on Computer Communications), a meeting of Asian computer
network experts was held annually with the meeting venue alternating between Japan and Korea
initially. The participants of the JWCC expanded gradually, resulting in its development into ICOIN
(International Conference on Information Network).

4. Prolification of the Internet among Research & Education Community, early 1990s

National Infrastructure Project

In July 1983, the plan for Five National Information Network Project which included National
Administrative Information Network, and Education and Research Network Infrastructure among
others was established, and the legal basis for pursuing the plan was put in place by legislation of
Legislature #3848, "Law on Expansion of Network Infrastructure and Use" on 12 May 1986. Based on
this law, the government of Korea established a Committee on Management of Networks to evaluate
and manage policies related to the construction of the national information networks and began a
government-led construction of the national information network. In June 1988, it was decided that
construction of the Research and Education Network, one of the national information networks would
be divided into Research Network and Education Network. The Research Network was operated by
the System Engineering Center(presently KISTI) which belongs to the Ministry of Science and
Technology, and the Education Network was operated by Seoul National University which belongs to
the Ministry of Education, and the construction of each network was launched. Both networks, the
Research Network, KREONet(Korea Research Environment Open Network) and the Educational
Network, KREN(Korea Research and Education Network), are still currently being used to connect
many research centers and universities, respectively.

Voluntary Research on Network Technology by Experts

SG-INET was established in 1991 to perform the role of developing, implementing, and operating
technologies by establishing subcommittees of working groups on naming, routing, Hangeul, and
security. The activities of these working groups resulted in many achievements such as; the naming
working group providing the fundamental infrastructure for the establishment of KRNIC, the Hangeul
working group developing the IETF standard for Hangeul mail, and the security working group
establishing CERT Korea. Many experts in network operation organizations such as KREN, KREONET,
KAIST, ETRI, SNU, NCA, Dacom, KT, Samsung and Goldstar participated in SG-INET.

KRNIC
In 1992, Korea Network Information Center was established in order to provide a network information
management function for all Internet services that had been under the supervision of ANC. Up to that
point, the registration of domain names on the Internet and administration of network information had
been performed on an individual network basis. However, because the magnitude of domestic Internet
was growing and because there was a global trend for establishing network information centers within
continents as well as individual nations, the Korea Network Information Center was founded. KAIST
had been consigned to run the Korea Network Information Center since January 1993, In September
1994, its central functions were transferred to the National Computerization Agency, and in June 1999,
an independent corporation named KRNIC was created to take complete charge of domestic network
information administration functions. In 2004, based on the Internet Address Resources Law. the
National Internet Development Agency of Korea was founded in order to perform the administrative
function of Korea's domestic Internet address resources.

Standardization of Hangeul Encoding

Existing e-mail programs were able to deliver mail without error only when Roman characters and
numbers were used, and mail sent in Korean characters were damaged, making it impossible for the
receiver to read mail sent in Korean characters. In December 1991, a Korean mail program, Hangeul
elm, was developed according to the Hangeul Encoding Standards(ISO2022-KR) which designated
principles for encoding Korean Hangeul characters into Roman characters and numbers without
corrupting the content. The encoding method used for this program was then further developed and
recorded as an RFC document of the IETF(The Internet Engineering Task Force) in 1993 under the
title, Korean Character Encoding for Internet Messages, which was the first RFC document by a
Korean submitted to IETF.

World Wide Web Begins

In the 1990s the global Internet experienced a revolutionary transformation in the Internet technology
called the World Wide Web, and in Korea the first web site, cair.kaist.ac.kr, was set up and operated at
the Center for Artificial Intelligence Research(CAIR) at KAIST in 1993.

KRNET
The 1990s was a period when Internet technology made a dramatic development globally as well as
domestically. One reflection of this could be found in the first KRNET(Korea Network Workshop) was
held in Seoul in 1993. This workshop continues to be held annually, providing a forum for introducing
new trends in Internet related technology, facilitating exchange of technology, and promoting
cooperation among technical experts.

5. Commercial Internet

Commercial Internet Service Begins

In the mid 1990s the Internet, which had only been restricted for use in universities and research
institutions up to that point, became available to businesses and individuals. Several commercial
Internet services were initiated in 1994, beginning with KORNET by Korea Telecom in June, 'DACOM
InterNet' by Dacom in October, and nuri.net by Inet Technologies in conjunction with Nowcom in
November. Commercial Internet services in Korea has since developed into a major industry in Korea,
with approximately 30 Internet service providers in operation in 2004.

KIX - Commercial Internet eXchange

In order to have the commercial Internet service providers operate with other Internet service
providers, the National Computerization Agency established an exchange, called KIX (Korea Internet
eXchange). The first step was to connect the Educational Network and the Research Network in
February 1995, and after March, eleven commercial Internet Service Providers(ISPs) such as Inet and
Nowcom were connected. In November that year, an agreement was made for an IX(Internet
Exchanger) system that would have the National Computerization Agency(NCA), Korea Telecom, and
Dacom be the hub(i.e., IX) for connecting and managing domestic Internet, and commercial ISPs were
transferred to the commercial IXs(Korea Telecom, Dacom) by December 1996. Also, in June 1999, the
Korea Internet eXchange Association, composed of many ISPs, set up a neutral Internet exchange
named KINX(Korea Internet Neutral eXchange).
Internet and the Mass Media
In March 1995, the Joongang Daily News began its first Internet news service and in October that year
the Chosun Daily News launched its Digital Chosun Daily News. Moreover, webzines(short for web
magazines), news sites that exist independently, not in conjunction with printed newspapers, were
introduced in September 1996 with the launching of im@ge by Inet and rapidly began to proliferate. In
addition, in 1996, the era of e-commerce, where things could be searched and purchased from the
web sites instead of at the stores, began with the opening of Interpark and Internet Lotte Department
Store.

Internet Expo
The 1990s was a period when the Internet was rapidly becoming popularized. In 1996, an international
Internet Expo was held on the Internet, an global event held with the purpose of encouraging the
expansion of Internet use and to utilize the Internet that had been constructed. This event provided a
range of opportunities for experimenting with the rapidly developing WWW technology and other
Internet technologies by using a web site on the Internet as the gallery in place of a physical one. In
Korea, this was an opportunity for the venture businesses to introduce their technologies domestically
as well as internationally and further develop them, as well as an occasion for encouraging the news
media to be involved in online operations. In addition, this provided the momentum for encouraging
public organizations in Korea to establish web sites.

Internet Ventures
Many ventures on the Internet started their operations in 1990s as the commercial Internet service
were deployed. Some of them led the Internet industry, and they include Ahn Chul Soo Laboratory on
virus protection, Daum on portal site with email service, NCsoft and Nexon on online game, and
Naver/NHN on search engine.

6. Broadband Internet

Widespread Availability of Broadband Internet

Until the late 1990s, individual home users of the Internet had a maximum connection speed of only
64 Kbps with dialup service. However, this changed when Thrunet began to provide broadband
Internet services in July 1998 with approximately 1Mbps connection speed using cable TV networks,
and Hanaro Telecom and KT joined in the broadband Internet provider race through the use of
ADSL(Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology. In 2004 the number of home users with
broadband Internet access exceeded 11 million, which covers over 70% of the households in Korea.
The widespread availability of broadband Internet services provided the impetus for Korea to become
the leading Internet stronghold nation of the world. Such a leap in the development of broadband
Internet stimulated the expansion of various multimedia services and provided the foundation for an
evolution into a ubiquitous networking made possible by a convergence of broadcasting and
telecommunication and wireless Internet services provided by mobile phones as well as broadband
Internet.

Factors in the Expansion of Broadband Internet

In the late 1990s when demand for services provided by the Internet was increasing but Internet
access from individual homes was not common, Internet cafe, or 'PC bang' that provide the general
public with Internet access began to appear. The first domestic Internet cafe is NET that began
operating in Seoul on 15 September 1995. The number of Internet cafes gradually increased, reaching
15,150 by the end of 1999. In addition, the number of online gamers increased, and PC bangs was at
the core of such a phenomenon. In 1998, an online war simulation game called Starcraft was widely
played by general public, and PC bangs were the center for such games. Youth in their 10s and 20s
provided the impetus for the increase in demand for online games, and it could be said that such a
demand contributed greatly to the distribution of Internet access to individual homes.

Using online stock trading based on the Internet enabled easy stock trading without having to
physically visit the stock brokerage. And Internet banking services enabled withdrawal or transfer of
funds without visiting the bank. Because it was so convenient, approximately 11,310,000 users, which
are about 30% of the total population of November 2001, were found to be registered users of Internet
banking

7. Social Impact of the Internet

Negative Impact of the Internet

Although the Internet is making our lives more convenient, it also has negative impacts on our society.
There is an increase in the number of people who are addicted to specific services on the Internet,
most notably online games and indecent information, and are unable to lead normal everyday lives.
There are web sites that plan suicides and actually carry them out. Criminal acts of obtaining and
using other peoples personal information by means such as hacking have occurred. In addition, there
are other negative incidents on the Internet such as the bombardment of unrestricted spam mail that
unnecessarily consumes people's time and the spreading computer viruses through e-mails,
obstructing business operations.

Governmental Efforts
In 1995, the Ministry of Information and Communication(MIC) established the Information
Communication Ethics Committee in order to prevent and evaluate the negative effects of network
communication. In addition, institutions such as the Internet Crime Investigation Center, Center for
Internet Addiction, and Korea Spam Response Center were established by cooperative efforts
between the government and civil societies and are involved in activities aimed at circumventing the
negative effects.

Balance between Individual Freedom and Regulation of Negative Impacts

Efforts to address the negative impact of the Internet have the danger of infringing individual's freedom,
and additional efforts to thwart such dangers have been concurrently pursued. In 2000, the Ministry of
Information and Communication(MIC) had attempted to legislate the Internet Content Rating System
when it was revising The Act on Promotion of Information & Communication Network Utilization and
Information Protection. But this effort was annulled due to civilian opposition. Article 53 of the
aforementioned act that allowed an order of the Minister of Information and Communication to place
certain restrictions on electronic and telecommunication businesses in dealing with certain types of
information was ruled partially unconstitutional in 2002.

8. Netizens

It was in the early 1990s that individuals of the general public were able to express their political and
social opinions through the Internet. As part of its support program for developing countries,
'Sustainable Development Network Program (SDNP),' the UN established SDNPs in many countries
including the one in Korea, which was hosted by YMCA. The anonymity and easy access afforded by
the Internet prompted various people to set up and operate web sites and express more diverse views.
In August 1997, the supporter club for the national soccer team selected the Red Devils as its official
name, and in November 2000, the Red Devils opened its home page and provided the major impetus
for the massive cheering crowds in the 2002 FIFA World Cup Games in Korea-Japan. When two
middle school girls were killed by a U.S. armored tank in June 2002, on-the-street candle light vigil by
netizens and online memorials spread throughout the country. In addition, during the December 2002
presidential election, there were many active online and offline campaigns organized and played out
by many netizen groups such as a support club for Mr. No Moo Hyun, People Who Love No Moo
Hyun(Nosamo). These netizen groups did not spring up suddenly with the introduction of the Internet.
Rather, they are extensions of online communities that were formed through the PC communications
in the early 1990s, using the Internet as their newer communication medium.
Bibliography

[1] Paul Baran, "The Beginnings of Packet Switching: Some Underlying Concepts," IEEE
Communications Magazine, July 2002, pp42-48.
[2] Barry M. Leiner, et al., "A Brief History of the Internet," Internet Society, 2003. http://www.isoc.org/
[3] K. Chon, H. Park, and H. Cho, " SDN: A Computer Network for Korean Research Community,"
Proceeding of PCCS (Pacific Computer Communications Symposium), Seoul, Korea, 1985.10,
pp.567-570.
[4] K. Chon, “National and Regional Computer Networks for Academic and Research Communities in
the Pacific Region”, Proceeding of PCCS, Seoul, Korea, 1985.10, pp.560-566.
[5] GC Son, A study on the development of Hangul mail system, MS Thesis, KAIST, 1984.
[6] K. Chon, AsiaNet Map, Proceeding of PCCS(Pacific Computer Communications Symposium),
Seoul, Korea, 1985.10.
[7] HJ Park, Korean Internet in the world; Korean Internet History, 1995.5. (in Korean)
[8] Ministry of Information and Communication, 20th Century Information Communication Cyber
History Museum.(in Korean) http://20citfind.or.kr/
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December 1993.
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[11] Wired Magazine, 10 Years that changed the world, August 2005.
[12] MK Kang, MS Baek, et al, Study on Korea Internet History Museum, IAK, August 2005.

Abbreviation
DSL Asymmestric Digital Subscriber Line
ANC Academic Network Commitee
CAIR Center for Artificail Intelligence Research
DNS Domain Name Service
ETRI Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute
FTP File Transfer Protocol
ICOIN International Conference on Information Network
IETF Internet Engineering Task Force
IX Internet Exchange
ISP Internet Service Provider
JWCC Joint Workshop on Computer Communications
KAIST Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
KINX Korea Internet Neutral eXchange
KIX Korea Internet eXchange
KNC Korea Network Committee
KRNIC Korea Network Information Center
KREONET Korea Research Environment Open Network
KREN Korea Research and Education Network
KRNET Korea Network Workshop
NNC Number and Name Committee
PACCOM Pacific Communications Networking Project
PCCS Pacific Computer Communictions Symposium
RFC Request For Comment
SDN System Development Network
SDNP Sustainable Development Network Program
UUCP Unix-to-Unix Copy
WWW World Wide Web
Appendix

Appendix 1: SDN Network Configuration(as of May 1985)

Appendix 2: AsiaNet Map

Appendix 3: Internet History Yearly Table (1969~2004)

Year Infra/Business Media/Community Society/Law/Organization

1982 SDN(TCP/IP)

UUCP/USENET
1983
Hangeul E-mail
1984 CSNET(X.25)

1985 Commercial Hangeul E-mail

Law on Information Network

1986 .kr domain PC Communications
Promotion
1987 NCA

1988 Brain Virus ANC(KNC)

1989

1990 Global IP Connection

1991

1992 KRNIC

1993 First RFC First Website KRNET

1994 Commercial ISP First Online Game Websites for Public Organization

1995 Internet Exchange (KIX) Internet Mass Media ICEC

1996 Electronic Commerce Internet Expo 96

1997 Online Stock Trade hanmail Internet Association of Korea

1998 Starcraft

1999 Internet Cafe (~10,000) Daum Cafe

2000 Internet Suicide Websites

Internet Banking Internet Crime Investigation

2001
(~ 11million users) Center
Broadband Internet
2002 Netizens Center for Internet Addiction
(~ 11million users)

1.25 Internet Slammer Worm

2003 Korea Spam Response Center
Virus
Appendix 4: Genealogy of the Internet Organizations in Asia
Appendix 5: A Brief History of the Internet in Asia

1. The Pre-Internet Period

The 1960s was the period that saw the birth of technologies and concepts that were
to become the foundation of the Internet. In 1960s, the concepts of packet switching, which was to
become the fundamental technology of the Internet, were proposed.
During the period between the late 1960s and early 1970s, efforts to construct domestic computer
networks were launched in countries such as France, UK, and USA. The most notable one is
ARPANET(Advanced Research Project Agency Network) in USA in 1969.
In Asia, similar efforts to develop computer networks were launched in 1970s and 1980s.
They include CSIRONET and N-1 Network in Australia, and Japan, respectively.

2. Initial Regional Coordination

ANW-AP(Academic Networkshop - Asia Pacific)

(International) Academic Networkshop was one of the early coordination meetings on the
internet globally, and had the first meeting in 1992. Asia started participation to the meeting from
1983. The first Asian coordination meeting, ANW-AP was held during the 1984 ANW, and
Australia, Japan and Korea participated the meeting.

AsiaNet
In 1980s, there was much development of UUCP-based computer networks in Asia as well as in other
continents. These domestic UUCP networks in Asia were linked internationally including Australia,
Indonesia, Japan, Korea and Singapore in 1983, and the international UUCP-based network in Asia
was called AsiaNet. They were used for email and news. AsiaNet was also linked to North
America(seismo, and hplabs) and Europe(mcvax).

PCCS(Pacific Computer Communications Symposium 1985)

In 1985, a conference focusing on computer networks, PCCS(Pacific Computer Communications
Symposium), which was one of the world's first conference to address on the Internet, was held in
Seoul, with approximately 300 Internet experts participating from Asia, Europe and North America.
Joint Network Meeting was held during the Symposium with presentations of research and education
networks in Australia, Japan, and Korea as well as European networks. Other countries and
economies such as China, Indonesia, Singapore, and Taiwan participated the meeting, too.
In addition, the PCCS provided the impetus for the annual meeting of JWCC(Joint Workshop on
Computer Communications), a meeting of Asian computer network experts was held annually with the
meeting venue alternating between Japan and Korea initially. The participants of the
JWCC expanded gradually, resulting in its development into ICOIN(International Conference on
Information Network).

3. Prolification of the Internet for Research and Education Community

The first Internet in Asia

Korea's first Internet with IPv4, SDN(System Development Network), began its operation in 1982 with
two nodes. The international link to USA was done with UUCP since the direct international link with IP
was not permitted in USA. Other countries followed the development of IPv4-based computer
networks in 1980s and beyond.

Campus Network
With prolification of Unix machines(minicomputers, workstations, PCs) and local area networks, the
Internet became common among universities in mid to late 1980s. The BSD(Berkeley Software
Distribution) version of UNIX, which includes TCP/IP protocols played a major role on the prolification
of the IP-based campus network then. Networking between universities were normally handled by
UUCP protocol, which was also readily available by mid-80s.

PACCOM(Pacific Communications Networking Project)

The direct international link with IP to USA was permitted later in the decade. With PACCOM (Pacific
Communications Networking) Project in 1989, several countries connected to USA through Hawaii.
They include Australia, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand. Many other countries connected to the US
Internet in 1990s with their domestic Internet development.

Bitnet Asia
Bitnet Asia, another computer network for research and education community was developed in 1980s
with the IBM network protocol to connect IBM mainframe computers of central computer centers
among Asian universities. The network eventually changed its protocol to the Internet protocol in
1990s to fully connect to the Internet.

UUCP Network
UUCP-based networks were extensively deployed in Asia starting from AsiaNet in early 1980s.
These networks also changed their protocols to the Internet protocol in 1980s and 1990s as their
traffic increased.

4. APNG, The First Regional Internet Group

CCIRN(Coordinating Committee for Inter-Continental Research Networking)

CCIRN(Coordinating Committee for Inter-Continental Research Networking) was spawned from
(International) Academic Networkshop to coordinate international links between Europe and North
America, and had its first meeting in 1987. Later, Asia was invited to participate, and APCCIRN was
created to coordinate CCIRN participation, and had its first meeting in 1991.

APCCIRN/APNG
Since APCCIRN is the only coordinating body in Asia on the Internet then, it ended up to coordinate
various matters on the Internet. The first matter was the creation of the regional IP registry, APNIC,
which was formally started in 1993. Later, APCCIRN was renamed to APNG (Asia Pacific Networking
Group), which span off many organizations in 1980s and 1990s. See Appendix A: Genealogy of
Internet Organizations in Asia Pacific for detail. It is currently operating APNG Camp among others.

INET
(International) Academic Networkshop had its last annual meeting in Australia in 1989. Its successor,
INET had its first annual meeting in Copenhagen in 1991, followed by Kobe in 1992, Many Asian
participated INET Conferences, and various coordination efforts took place during INET Conferences.

5. APNIC, Regional IP Address Registry

Asia Pacific Network Information Center(APNIC) was created in 1983 to handle regional coordination
body in Asia, was created in 1983 to handle IP registry IP registry for Asia. APNIC and its counterparts,
RIPE NCC in Europe, ARIN in North America, LACNIC in Latin America, and AfriNIC in Africa
coordinate the world-wide IP registry.

6. APRICOT, Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies

Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies(APRICOT) was created by

volunteers of APNIC, APNG, and others to provide a forum for those key Internet builders in the region
to learn from their peers and others leaders in the Internet community from around the world, and had
its first annual conference in 1996 in Singapore. APRICOT is managed by APIA, another spinoff from
APNG as APNG Commercial WG.

7. Regional Research and Education Networks

There were two new major initiatives in mid-1990s to develop regional research and education
networks; APAN(Asia Pacific Network Consortium), and AI3(Asia Internet Interconnection Initiative
Project).

AI3
AI3 was kicked off in 1995 by WIDE Project and JSAT in Japan. It has been operating a satellite
based testbed network in South East Asia and producing a series of research activities using
the testbed. With its companion project called SOI-Asia(School of Internet-Asia), which is also based
on the satellite, over 10 countries in South and Southeast Asia are linked to provide precious
communication resources for research and education communities.

APAN
APEC Symposium was held in 1996 to discuss on gigabit networking among others. The subsequent
meeting on the gigabit networking at APII Testbed Forum in 1997 resulted in the formation of APAN.
APAN Consortium addresses a high-performance network for research and development on advanced
next generation applications and services.

8. APTLD, Regional Domain Name Coordination

International Forum on the White Paper(IFWP) was held around the world in 1997-1998 to discuss on
the creation of the international governance body on the Internet domain names, IP registry, and the
root servers among others, and ICANN(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) was
created. During these meetings, the consensus was developed to form a regional body to address
country-code top level domain names(ccTLD). APTLD was established in 1998 to work as the forum
of information exchange regarding technological and operational issues of domain names registries in
Asia Pacific region.

9. AP* Retreat, Common for Information Exchange and Discussion

By late 1990s, there are many Internet-related organizations in Asia Pacific, and a common to
exchange information among these organizations and discuss the relevant issues became necessary.
The fist meeting was held in 1998. Since then, AP* Retreat was held during APRICOT in winter and
APAN in summer every year.

10. Internationalized Domain Names

The internationalization of the Internet became very important as the Internet became common in the
world. In order to progress the Internet internationalization, the Internationalized domain name(IDN)
project was started in Asia, and IETF decided to standardize on IDN in late 1990s. Subsequently a set
of the standards on IDN were completed in early 2000s. During the period of IDN development,
several organizations were created to address IDN issues including MINC(Multilingual Internet Name
Consortium), CDNC(Chinese Domain Name Consortium), and JET(Joint Engineering Team) in
addition to INFITT, which addresses on Tamil Language and Arabic language group.

11. Governmental Initiatives

APEC(Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation)

With creation of APEC(Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation), various activities related to the Internet
were started. The most noteworthy activities include APEC Tel WG on telecommunications and EC
SG on e-commerce. These groups were created in 1990 and 1999 respectively.

UNDP(United Nations Development Programme)

The Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme(APDIP) is an initiative of the United Nations
Development Programme(UNDP) that aims to promote the development and application of new
information and communication technologies for poverty alleviation and sustainable human
development in the Asia-Pacific region.

IDRC(International Development Research Centre)

PAN(Pan Asia Networking) is an IDRC program to seeks to understand the positive and negative
impacts of information communication technologies(ICTs) on people, culture, the economy, and
society, so as to strengthen ICT uses that promote sustainable development on the Asian continent.
IDRC renamed the above program as PAN(Pan Asia Networking) in 2000.

12. Central, South and West Asia

The Internet came late to Central, South, and West(Middle East) Asia, but many interesting activities
were reported lately.

SANOG(South Asia Network Operators Group)

SANOG was started in 2003 to bring together operators for educational as well as cooperation.
SANOG provides a regional forum to discuss operational issues and technologies of interest to data
operators in the South Asian Region, and meets twice a year. SANOG is the first regional Internet
organization in South Asia with participatants from Afganistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldive,
Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. SANOG has very close cooperation with the rest of Asian Internet
organizations including APNIC and APRICOT.

Silk Project
NATO's Silk Project is designed to develop national and regional research and education networks in
Central Asia and the Caucasus, and it is officially called the Virtual Silk Highway. It also has the
satellite links to Europe. The project originated as a NATO funded project in 2001, and includes the
following countries in Central Asia; Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan,Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan." It also includes three countries of the Southern Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan,and
Georgia. http://www.silkproject.org/.

EUMEDconnect
The EUMEDconnect project is an initiative to establish and operate IP-based network in the
Mediterranean region, and the proejct started in 2001. The EUMEDconnect network serves the
research and education communities of the Mediterranean region, and is linked to the pan-European
GEANT network. Countries in West Asia(Middle East) which participate in EUMEDconnect Project
include Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, and Turkey.

13. Security

APNG started Security WG in early 1990s to coordinate on security in the region as well as with other
continents. Later, APNG Security WG supported creation of several security-related groups including
Asia PKI Forum in 2001, and APCERT in 2002.

14. Internet Prolification

Internet Users
The Internet became very popular in Asia lately, and the Internet user population in Asia surpassed
those of North America and Europe in 2000s. There are many other Internet areas where Asia is
leading the world including broadband penetration, online game, and mobile Internet.

Broadband
Broadband prolification started in late 1990s in Korea, first, followed by other East Asia countries and
economies including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and metropolitan areas of China. They are leading
the Broadband penetration globally with many innovative applications. The broadband is rapidly
becoming social infrastructure in the region.

Online Game
Online game over the Internet is one of the applications where East Asian countries and economies
are leading globally. This is partially due to the broadband prolification. Many leading companies on
the online game reside in the region.

Mobile Internet
The mobile Internet based on cellular telephone became very popular in Asia, starting from i-mode in
Japan in 1999, followed by countries and economies in East Asia including Hong Kong, Korea, and
Taiwan. The mobile Internet is used for email, web access, e-commerce and many other applications.
Many innovative applications have been developed in Asia.

15. Concluding Remark

It has been 23 years since the first Internet was deployed in Asia, and 20 years since the first Internet-
related conference with the coordination meeting was held in Asia. This short paper on the brief
Internet history in Asia focused on the Internet-related organizations, mostly technical and business
organizations. We need another paper on social, cultural, and political aspects of the Internet history,
and hope some group to take on this challenge. I appreciate AP* Retreat community, APNG
community and others to contribute to review on this paper.

16. Bibliography

AP* Retreat, Yearly Milestones on the Internet in Asia, 2005. www.apstar.org

Kilnam Chon, "National and Regional Computer Networks for Academic and Research Communities
in the Pacific Region," Proceedings of PCCS, North-Holland, 1985.
IAK, A Brief History of the Internet in Korea, 2005. www.iak.ne.kr
Bob Leiner, et al, A Brief History of the Internet, ISOC, www.isoc.org
Dan Lynch and Marshall Rose, Internet System Handbook, Addison-Wesley, 1993.
Carl Malamud, Exploring the Internet, Prentice-Hall, 1992.