Connectivity Providers Database

From: hope@huracan.cr (Theodore Hope) To: randy@psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 92 14:04:55 CAM Randy, I'm going to give you the standard blurb on Huracan, which as you know really covers six countries, though it's based in Costa Rica. If you haven't already, you might contact the lovely Guy de Teramond (gdeter@ucrvm2.bitnet) so he can tell you about the CRNet (Costa Rica Internet) plans, which should be a reality before the end of 1992. In case you don't know: contact the following for info in their countries: Cuba: calixto@ceniai.cu (Calixto Sanchez) Ecuador: intercom@ecuanex.ec Bolivia: clifford@unbol.bo and gudkor@unbol.bo Regards, -Ted ----------------------- ----------------------- ----------------------- > o who to contact in your country to find out "How do I get email to X," Panama: barragan@huracan.cr (Victor Barragan) Costa Rica: hope@huracan.cr (Ted Hope) Nicaragua: tere@uni.ni (Teresa Ortega) Honduras: pleitez@huracan.cr (Eduardo Pleitez) or hope@huracan.cr (Ted Hope) El Salvador: tinac@huracan.cr (Christina Courtright) Guatemala: furlan@huracan.cr (Luis Furlan) o r hope@huracan.cr (Ted Hope) ----------------------- ----------------------- ----------------------- The "Proyecto Huracan" began in August 1990 with funding from the United Nations Development Programme's regional (Latin America & Caribbean) project for non-commercial data communications networks. Huracan was housed in the Secretaria General ("Secretariat General") of the Consejo Superior Universitario Centroamericano - CSUCA ("Higher Council of Central American Public Universities") in San Jose, Costa Rica. A project financed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA, or ACDI in Spanish), and managed by the University of Ottawa in conjunction with CSUCA, has paid for all of Huracan's telecommunication costs (X.25 and to the Internet, see below) since it began serving users in September 1990. Huracan, a '386 with Interactive Unix, 8 MB RAM, 650 MB disk, etc., is an X.25 host on the Costa Rican PDN, Racsapac. Users connect to Huracan by calling the PADs of Racsapac and its sibling PDNs throughout the region (Mayapaq in Guatemala, Antelpac in El Salvador, Hondutel/Teledatos in Honduras, Nicapac in Nicaragua, and Racsapac in Costa Rica and Panama). Because of the terrestrial microwave links that span the Central American region, X.25 rates from any of the countries to Huracan are quite inexpensive (between US$ 0.03 and 0.05 cents per minute connect time, with no per-traffic charge in most cases). Huracan communicates with the Internet (via uunet.uu.net) three times a day via dial-up call (Telebit T2500), and is registered in the maps as "huracan.cr". Huracan's user interface was designed for non-computer experts, and is completely in Spanish. Users have access to email (a version of "elm" translated into Spanish), certain net newsgroups (a version of "nn" translated into Spanish), and a few experimental databases of regional interest online. Huracan currently serves approximately 350-400 users throughout the six countries; most of them are from academic, research, and non-governmental institutions, though there is no restriction as to who can join. Mail and news flow at approximately fifteen megabytes per month, with approximately 3:1 ratio of incoming to outgoing data. In January 1992, due to institutional problemas at CSUCA, Huracan was moved to the Fundacion Nahual, a non-profit, non-governmental institution based in Costa Rica which works in the areas of information and communication, primarily in the Central American context. The University of Costa Rica, which since October 1990 has had a 19.2kbps line from one of its systems (UCRVM2) to Bitnet, plans to use the line for an Internet link before the end of 1992. When this happens, Huracan as well as other institutions in Costa Rica will share the link, benefitting all the users in the region that currently use Huracan, and reducing extra-regional communications costs. It is hoped that the Costa Rican link to the US Internet will serve other Central American countries' extra-regional communications needs. ------------------------------------- The Fundacion Nahual is working with the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala to set up a uucp node in that institution (which will communicate with Huracan) before the end of 1992. It is hoped that that node (uvg.gt) will serve as a hub for other uucp nodes in Guatemala.