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Quantifying the Digital Divide:focus Africa

Prepared by Les Cottrell, SLAC

for the NSF IRNC meeting , March 11, 2005www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/scs/net/talk05/nsf-irnc-mar05.ppt

Source: IDRC 2005

PingER

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Goal• Measure the network performance for developing regions

– From developed to developing & vice versa– Between developing regions & within developing regions

• Use simple tool (PingER/ping)– Ping installed on all modern hosts, low traffic interference,

• Provides very useful measures• Originated in High Energy Physics, now focused on DD• Persistent (data goes back to 1995), interesting history

Monitoring siteRemote site

PingER coverage Feb 2005

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World ViewS.E. Europe, Russia: catching upLatin Am., Mid East, China: keeping upIndia, Africa: falling behind

C. Asia, Russia, S.E. Europe, L. America, M. East, China: 4-5 yrs behind

India, Africa: 7 yrs behind

Important for policy makers

Many institutes in developing world have less performance than a household in N. America or Europe

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Loss to world from US

2001 Dec-2003

In 2001 <20% of In 2001 <20% of the world’s the world’s population had population had Good or Good or Acceptable Loss Acceptable Loss performanceperformance

Loss RateLoss Rate< 0.1 to 1 %< 0.1 to 1 % 1 to 2.5 %1 to 2.5 % 2.5 to 5 %2.5 to 5 % 5 to 12 %5 to 12 % > 12 %> 12 %

BUT by December 2003BUT by December 2003It had improved to 77%It had improved to 77%

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Losses

• US residential Broadband users have better access than sites in many regions

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Loss to Africa (example of variability)

From PingER project

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African Region Performance

N. Africa has better connectivity; typically 8 years behind Europe, lot of variability

West Africa

East Africa

South Africa

North Africa

Keeping up

Keeping up

Catching up

Median 75%

25%Europe ’95-97

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Compare with TAI• UN Technology Achievement Index (TAI)

Note how bad Africa is

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Collaborations/funding• Good news:

– Active collaboration with NIIT Pakistan to develop network monitoring including PingER

• Travel funded by US State department for 1 year

– FNAL & SLAC continue support for PingER management and coordination

• Bad news (Operational support currently unfunded, could disappear):– DoE funding for PingER terminated

• Hard to get funding for operational needs (~0.3 FTE)– For quality data need constant vigilance (host disappear,

security blocks pings, need to update remote host lists, hosts move (e.g. proxy web servers …)

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Summary

• Performance from U.S. & Europe is improving all over

• Performance to developed countries are orders of magnitude better than to developing countries

• Poorer regions 5-10 years behind• Poorest regions Africa, Caucasus, Central & S.

Asia• Some regions are:

– catching up (SE Europe, Russia), – keeping up (Latin America, Mid East, China), – Maybe falling further behind (e.g. India, Africa)

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Further Information

• PingER project home site– http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/

• PingER methodology (presented at I2 Apr 22 ’04)– http://www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/scs/net/talk03/i2-method-

apr04.ppt

• ICFA/SCIC Network Monitoring report– http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/icfa/icfa-net-paper-

jan05/20050206-netmon.doc

• ICFA/SCIC home site– http://icfa-scic.web.cern.ch/ICFA-SCIC/

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Extra slides

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Countries covered• Sites in 114 countries are monitored• Goal to have 2 sites/country

– Reduce anomalies• Orange countries are in developing regions and have only one site• Megenta no longer have a monitored site (pings blocked)

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View from CERN• Confirms view from N. America

TCP throughput from CERN to World Regions

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Feb-98 Jun-99 Oct-00 Mar-02 Jul-03 Dec-04

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Europe

N America

SE Europe

M East

Russia

L America

AfricaChina

India

From the PingER project August 2004.

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Another view of Improvements

• Increase in fraction of good sites

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From Developing Regions

TCP throughput measured from Brazil to World Regions

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Jan-04 Feb-04 Mar-04 Apr-04 May-04 Jun-04 Jul-04 Aug-04

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Africa E. Asia Europe N. AmericaRussia S. America S. Asia

Latin America

Europe N. America

As expected Brazil to L. America is goodActually dominated by Brazil to BrazilTo Chile & Uruguay poor since goes via US

Brazil (Sao Paolo)

Novosibirsk

NSK to Moscow used to be OK but loss went up in Sep. 2003 GLORIAD may help

TCP throughput from Novosibirsk to world regions

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Sep-02 Dec-02 Mar-03 Jun-03 Oct-03 Jan-04 Apr-04 Aug-04

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Africa AustralasiaBalkans E. AsiaEurope M. EastN. America RussiaS. America S. Asia

big loss increase to Moscow (from < 1% to 2-3%)Moscow

Japan/ChinaN. America

Novosibirsk

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Within Developing Regions

• In ’80s many Eu countries connected via US• Today often communications within developing

regions to go via developed region, e.g.– Rio to Sao Paola goes directly within Brazil – But Rio to Buenos Aires goes via Florida

• And…–NIIT – NSC (Rawalpindi – Islamabad) few miles apart,

•Route goes via England!!!!•Takes longer to go few miles than to SLAC!

• Doubles international link traffic, increases delays, increases dependence on others

• Within a region can be big differences between sites/countries, due to service providers

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Compare with TAI• UN Technology Achievement Index (TAI)