Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 10:59:52 Est
Reply-To: "Pimienta Daniel " <[email protected]>
From: "Pimienta Daniel " <[email protected]>
To: ""Laurence I. Press" " <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected]
Subject: Re: Redes en el Caribe
X-Mulbri: 00**0000000000
Dear Larry,

First of all, I do understand your perplexity. Let me try to help on my side.

CARIBBEAN RESEARCH NETWORK USERS
How many research and academic users in the Caribbean? You are pointing your finger to a delicate matter where the key question is the one of methodology:

^^^^^^^^^^^

FUNREDES considers that the correct way to compare network user figures is to set the ground with a common methodology. This is why it is important to both establish and present the methodology

			^^^^^^^^^^^^
when it comes	to counting network users.
----->When is	a person accountable as a network	user?
The definition we have used is of
Definition 1:	network user= a person making use	of	a network.

As opposed to another implicit definition used by other people Definition 2: network user= a person registered in a network.

With definition 1, we discard the persons who are registered in system without real use to the network facilities. For instance if the FINGER function feed back today something like: "Mr John Smith, [email protected], last login 1/4/93" we will not consider Mr Smith as a network user, although he is perfectly registered. Will you?

We consider this is the appropiate definition as it reinforces the value of usage, focuses the prevalent part of networks (user vs technology), prevents artificially increased user figures, reflects the vitality of a network and is coherent with traffic figures.

Of course, the question of "threshold" remains: what is the minimal time between 2 connections to be considered as a user?! Between days, weeks, months and years I will pick months (e.g. if a person connects once every 1 to 3 weeks he or she is a user, but not if the connection are separated by 3 elapsed months). I personnaly do not think the question of threshold is fundamental since network administrators know really with their logs who is using the network and since usually persons get hooked to the network (minimal use once a week) or leave it (no use).

Anyway, the question of what is the correct methodology could be a very polemical matter and, in any case, other opinions prevail and must be respected. I only expect everybody to agree in one specific point: it is not correct to make comparisons with methodologies triggering differences of order of magnitude. Will you agree?

Finally, the possibility remains to avoid the point using only the traffic figures as the reference data. However, here again, the methodology is a key factor ... although less sensitive.

CARIBBEAN NETWORKS FUTURE
As a conclusion, enhancing the scope of your very question, I want to take the opportunty to give our colleagues the background of the report of FUNREDES you are refering, a report which could honestly be qualified of "strong statement" by any reader. I totally assume that.

The question of the number of users using the network in the Caribbean (I could say "empowered") is not a detail. This is a critical matter as far as financing network activities is concerned: a difference of one zero is that figure may imply another difference of one zero in the funding allowed by Agencies. Why would any Agency worry of helping Caribbean research networks if there is thousands of researchers using them and they could then considered the disemination problem as solved?

Stop by the electronic forums (about Caribbean or not). Have a look to the electronic addresses of their Caribbean posters. Most of them, if not from Cuba, are commercial provider users. The trend is clear that the electronic life in the Caribbean be centered in the commercial side of the Internet ... and still more when hurricanes get closer and UPR decide to close the CUNET and REDID gateway as a "preventive matter" (sic) showing a comprehension of what are the NICTs which I find very hard to share.

After that, navigate in the Caribbean Webs and use their meta-indexes to query the Caribbean. You will get the message that the Caribbean is only a turistical location in the earth and that CUNET is fulfilling all the needs in the Caribbean researchers community. Except if you are in the field struggling, you will get a high confidence that the Caribbean Research Networks are well and alive.

Don't get me wrong: building Caribbean sites in the WWW is a noble and useful task and each project should legitimally insure its promotion with the state of the art tools of the media.

But what if there is more Caribbean URLs than Caribbean users? What if the URLs are mainly made by non-Caribbean actors with the bias on turism?
What if the weakness of the academic and research Internet sectors in front of the commercial make it a negligeable actor in that field? What is the Caribbean Infostructure is built from the outside? What about Caribbean integration, economical, political and social future as related to the NTICs?

Best wishes Larry for your report,
Best regards to all of you,

Daniel Pimienta
.