Internet in VN - Imminent or Impossible? (fwd)

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

Some interesting info in this article, esp. the one about proxy servers 
as a means to filter objectionable contents.

Hai.

>From VBJ:

 [Internet-Imminent or Impossible?] Government officials seem poised to open
                 a gateway to the information superhighway.
              But first a vigilant gatekeeper must be in place.
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by Christopher Moore

[T] alk of the Internet in Vietnam seems to come in
    threes these days. "All I understand is waiting,
waiting, waiting," for Internet, said Le Trung Nghia, vice director of
Hanoi's Batin Co., a local e-mail provider. "Plans, plans, plans," is all
the government has to open a gateway, said an exasperated Rob Hurle of the
ANU computing center in Australia, which administers mirror sites for e-mail
services in Vietnam.

And it is three approvals from the highest levels of government that will be
needed before a gateway linking Vietnam to Internet is switched on. Prime
Minister Vo Van Kiet, Party Secretary Do Muoi, and current President Le Duc
Anh, will all have to give their stamp of approval before computer users in
Vietnam can finally have affordable, direct access to the Internet. When
they will do so is anybody's guess.

However, one small step in that direction took place when the Vietnam
National Post and Telecommunications (VNPT) awarded a contract to the
Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT), a well-connected
IT firm in Hanoi, to supply and install some of the hardware needed to open
the gateways.

FPT, a state-company under the Ministry of Science Technology and the
Environment, won the $670,000 project, beating out offshore rivals like
GlobalOne and Hewlett Packard. The project will build upon the wide-band
connection to Internet that VNPT has had in place for over a year when it
linked with Sprint's international network.

The project will also focus on linking the Hanoi-HCMC dedicated data line to
other major cities, FPT officials said. Several foreign IT executives
speculated that FPT will also be working with the Ministry of Interior on
security issues related to Internet communications.

Carlo Subido, IBM's Hanoi Chief Representative, believes the project is a
positive development, but that full Internet access (if it comes at all)
should not be expected before the fourth quarter of this year. "We think
this is really a step forward, but the implementation will probably take
half of this year, and then the next half will be opening it up," Subido
said.

FPT's head of business development, Nguyen Hung Cuong, said FPT will
complete the project by April and will move quickly from vendor to Internet
Service Provider (ISP). "When we get the approval we will open one system
with 25 users, hopefully by the end of the first quarter, then 10 more users
in the second quarter," he said.

Each of these users will have to register with the Ministry of Interior and
the Ministry of Culture and Information before they can sign up to FPT's
service. "I cannot say when Vietnam will have access to instant e-mail and
the World Wide Web," Cuong said, "but my guesswork is that my company will
open e-mail and the World Wide Web in June."

Managing the Gateway

[M] ost IT executives in Vietnam agree that the introduction of Internet to
    Vietnam has less to do with installing the right hardware than with
installing the right policies. For over three years, Vietnam has lurched
towards Internet, with at least five ministries debating the questions of
who is going to control Internet, how content will be monitored, and who
will have access to it.

The key question, which nobody seems to be able to answer right now, is:
will government officials ever be comfortable with a media that they cannot
completely control? Will they conclude that that the benefits of Internet
outweigh any potential harm?

Doubters point to a December edict restricting satellite dish ownership as a
sign of which way the government is leaning. They also note that the
existing gateway has been opened, and quickly closed, several times already.

Optimists predict that the government is pragmatic enough to know that the
country's IT industry stands gain enormously by allowing Internet.
Applications, technical support, the latest information on software and
hardware will all become cheaply, and instantly available. Mr. Tran Ba Thai,
the head of the networking department at the Institute of Information
Technology, is one eager to tap into the Net. "We have many times sent out
ideas about this matter to authorized offices for consideration," he said.
"Accessing Internet is obviously important for Vietnam. We can reach all
over the world for information on economy, computers, education. I will be
one of the pioneers in this field when Vietnam opens the gateway to the
Internet."

"They realize that they've got to do it," said one rep from a U.S. computer
firm. "It's just a matter of which is the best way. One is that you do not
have access whatsoever, but they know that this is just not possible."

Potential web-surfers are now speculating which direction the government
will go, if those optimists prove correct.

The VNPT has lobbied hard to make its subsidiary, the Vietnam Data
Communications Co. (VDC), the monopoly to manage, and profit most from, the
gateway to Internet. A year ago, VNPT seemed to have achieved its goal by
convincing Ministry of Culture and Information and Ministry of Interior that
only it could prevent "undesirable" content from being transmitted to
Vietnam.

VNPT's optimism ended quickly when it failed to prove it could screen
content. "When the security people asked VNPT to demonstrate their expertise
in that area, they went to water, and could not show any 'firewall'
capability," said one local IT expert.

Several foreign IT experts in HCMC and Hanoi believe Vietnam will now follow
the lead of China and Singapore by establishing "proxy" servers to hold and
monitor web sites. Approved sites will be made available to local users,
those that don't meet the standards won't be put on the domestic network.

According to Ross Grey at Electronic Embassy, an Internet public affairs
group in Washington D.C., proxy servers slow connection times but are
generally considered an effective way to screen and filter content. "In
cases where there are only one or two links into a country, yes, it can be
done. There's no real need for very advanced technology to do this," he
said. "In the case of countries like China or Vietnam where the
infrastructure and volume is so meagre, it isn't all that hard to imagine
watching almost all of it."

The problem is that as volumes increase, the government will need more and
more powerful computers to continually screen and filter out unacceptable
content. IT analysts fear that Vietnam may end up spending large portions of
its limited IT budget on screening web sites, instead of on more productive
IT initiatives.

New Playing Field

[D] espite the early setback, nearly all observers believe it is inevitable
    that VDC will be awarded the monopoly in the next few months. Officials
at VNPT and the VDC are not disclosing when a decision will be made. "It is
too early and it is not easy for us to talk about when the Internet will be
in Vietnam," said one VDC employee.

When it does come, the decision will be a concrete step towards the opening
of the gateways. It will also be the final blow to online services such as
Netnam, which had hoped to link directly to the wide-band connection.
Netnam's operators fought hard for that right, often using its bulletin
boards as a battlefield.

"Since Netnam does not yet have a wide-band link to the Internet, thanks to
VNPT's greedy obstruction, we cannot yet access this host. Hopefully, that
won't last forever," one posting read, speaking of Netnam's inability to
reach this magazine's WWW site.

Once the gateway is opened, companies like Netnam will probably become the
country's first Internet Service Providers, which will then pay VDC for the
right to transmit data over the wide-band connection.

"There are a few different groups, some of them private, that are providing
some access to world wide Internet e-mail," said one Hanoi-based IT
executive. "They're in a gray area where the government knows it's going on
but they haven't specifically approved or disapproved of that service. These
are the companies that are looking to position themselves as de facto ISPs
in the future."

Hugo Shong, Asia-Pacific director at International Data Group, a
Boston-based IT consultancy, believes Vietnam could follow China's lead in
its approach to ISPs. Shong points to the Chinese government's decision to
license 10 official ISP's under the umbrella of the national post and
telecoms ministry through which all connections to international networks
must flow.

Today, a number of those initial ISPs have sub-licensed to smaller providers
and competition among the ISPs has led to broader awareness of Internet in
China. Chinese post offices now fly banners touting their Internet services,
while competing ISPs recruit new subscribers at shopping centers in China's
biggest cities.

Most observers agree that there are four main players that will seek to join
VDC as commercial ISPs in Vietnam: Netnam, FPT, Teltic Co., and Batin Co.
Each has been providing e-mail to subscribers, operating bulletin boards,
and in some cases Intranets within Vietnam.

Teltic Co., a private firm run from Nha Trang by director Nguyen Anh Tuan,
established an Intranet service called VietNet. Still in its early stages,
the service allows corporations like Digital the opportunity to launch a web
page in Vietnam. Privately-owned Batin Co., a subsidiary of aptly named
Communications, Computer, Control (3C Co.), has also plunged into the
Intranet business, hosting the home pages of Vietnamese companies like Bao
Viet and Petrolimex.

What Will it Cost?

[C] omputer users and the potential ISPs are keeping their fingers crossed
    that when the gateways open, VDC will keep its fees relatively
affordable. IT experts warn that the point of the gateways is to make
Internet access affordable. If VDC leverages its monopoly to keep rates
steep, Internet Vietnam will be back to square one.

Several in the industry predict there will be scaled rates, with foreign
companies paying the highest fees. "Recently, the VNPT has dropped the phone
bills dramatically," said Hanoi-resident and Netnam administrator Bobby
Watts. "The rates for the Net should drop accordingly."

Others are not expecting much mercy from VNPT. Keeping rates high would cut
some of VNPT's losses if multinationals switch from phone or fax to modem.
High fees would help VNPT recoup its considerable investment in IT more
quickly. Finally, like in China, the high cost would be an effective way to
restrict Internet access to a limited segment of the population.

One HCMC-based executive with a major American IT firm isn't banking on
cheap rates anytime soon. "When I log on to my e-mail I'm paying $3.00 a
minute. I don't see that changing that much. VDC sees this as a fantastic
money-making opportunity and I expect there'll be a hefty surcharge on
anything that goes outside of Vietnam on their lines" While not the most
optimistic of outlooks, compared to the cost of leasing IDD lines to servers
outside Vietnam a gateway controlled by VDC may be better than no gateway at
all.

Since the Story was Published...

A March 17 decree issued by Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet confirmed the
government's right to monitor, and control, any future gateways linking
Vietnam to Internet. According to the decree, the government reserves the
right to license and monitor Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Vietnam.
The decree also confirmed that the national telecoms regulatory agency,
DGPT, will issue licenses to future ISPs while the Ministry of Culture and
Information will be responsible for regulating content.

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