Network Technology Laboratory (NTL)

Introduction

Network Technology Laboratory (NTL) was established first as an in-house laboratory in 1992 (B.E. 2535) with main objectives to carry out research on networking technologies and to set up

a computer network infrastructure for Thailand. Several projects were initiated and developed successfully by NTL; for examples, the Thai Social/Scientific Academic and Research Network (ThaiSarn), PubNet, SchoolNet, Linux-SIS, PIE (Public Internet Exchange), Internet Information Research (IIR), etc. During the organizational structure changes within NECTEC, NTL and other research laboratories were consolidated and structured into R&D groups: Electronics, Computing, Telecommunication, Information (ECTI) plus Infrastructure and Policy. Recently, NTL has been re-established as a research laboratory in 2006 with the following goals.

carry out advanced research and development on networking technologies
serve the technology need of R&D programs
support human development and knowledge transfer in network technology areas
respond to the needs for consulting services and network solutions
support the development of network infrastructure for research and education in Thailand

Vision & Mission

A driving force to carry out research and development on networking technologies for valuable outcomes that lead to strengthening economy and enhancing knowledge-based society in Thailand.

Research Topics

1. Network Convergence

The concept of network convergence is revolutionizing the way IT and communication infrastructures will be deployed today and in the next decade. In a converged network, voice and video services that have traditionally been carried on independent private infrastructures will be deployed on the same IP network that carries data traffic. Furthermore, mobility services based on wireless technologies will be an integral part of this new infrastructure. The benefits of such a convergence of media and services is the reduced deployment and management costs and the potential of offering many value-added services beyond those that exist today. We are beginning to see this convergence in both home and enterprise networks with the deployment of triple-play or quad-play services such as voice over IP (VoIP) and IPTV.

The research issues that we are exploring in this area are the development of applications that leverage the new capabilities of a converged infrastructure and the design, deployment and management of converged infrastructures to deliver high-quality high-availability services.

2. Network Operation and Management

An intelligent network operation & management system is a crucial component in any reliable networks. There exist many network management system (NMS) tools that can help the system administrators manage the operation and management tasks, but the main issues are as follows. First, good tools are generally complicated and require technical expertise to interpret the outputs. Second, there is a need for an intelligent system that integrates basic important routines, such as system configuration, network monitoring, bandwidth and service control, and Root-cause analysis. Our goal is to develop the NMS tools that are user-friendly, affordable, and complicated enough to make intelligent decisions on complex tasks.

3. Network Security

The Internet has been growing rapidly and becoming an integral part of everyone's lives. Together with the growth of network activities, network attacks have been advancing and impacting to the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of critical information data. Hence, network security becomes an important issue. We consider various aspects of network security such as unexpected traffic, denial of service attack, and anomaly-based intrusion detection.

4. IPv6

IPv6 has been adopted by the IETF to replace IPv4, the current version of the Internet Protocol, due to the foreseeable problem of IPv4 address space shortage. IPv6 also possesses other features, which lack in the current IPv4 implementation, such as security, quality of service (QoS), mobility, multicasting, and autoconfiguration. However, the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 will not be quick or easy. Therefore, we have to prepare Thailand for such change ahead of time.

To promote IPv6 in Thailand, NTL has established the Thailand Ipv6 Testbed in October 2001. The goal of is to establish Ipv6-world gateway and provide experimental quality IPv6-based services to support research and operational activities in development of IPv6-related technology and Ipv6-ready network for Thai people. Since its operation, the Thailand IPv6 Testbed has established Ipv6 connections to many universities and ISPs in the country. The connections are mostly in forms of automatic tunneling and dual-stack technologies. In December 2004, the Thailand IPv6's Testbed project joined force with Prince Songkhla University and other ISPs to form the Thailand IPv6 Forum as an official collaboration of active IPv6 players in the country.

5. Traveller Information System

Traveler information system provides personalized, on-demand, and real-time information to travelers, commuter, and/or commercial vehicles about the condition the transportation system. The information includes degree of congestion, travel time, incidents, and special events that effect the flow of traffic. Travel information system allows individual traveler can make better decision on route decision, departure time, or mode of transportation. Traveler information system could provide benefits to four areas: i) direct impacts on travelers and good carriers, ii) effect on non-travelers and freight customers, iii) effects on transportation agencies and iv) environmental effects. The availability of traveler information system can translate into time saving, cost reduction, enhanced satisfaction, and safety. We currently focus the research on this topic on three areas: a) traffic data collection using mobile probes, b) translation of raw traffic data into traveler information, and c) dissemination of traveler information.

Projects

1. Intelligent Network Management System

The goal of the project is to increase the productivity of network administrators by automating simple tasks and stream-lining more complex tasks, giving them more time to analyze and work on problems that require human attention. We will develop an automation framework that presents an integrated view of the current status of both network and server components, as well as the control mechanism for effectively manage bandwidth usage. Our system aims to provide user-friendly and customizable interface. Target users of this system are schools, universities, Internet cafes, SMEs and organizations that may not have knowledgeable personnel to manage their internal networks. (Intelligent Network Management System website is http://wiki.nectec.or.th/ntl/Project/NetworkManagement)

Figure 1: Intelligent Network Management System

2. Voice over IP Manager (Vman)

IP telephony based on the technology of VoIP (Voice over IP) has been widely used today due to many of its benefits including efficiency, cost savings, and integration with data services. Asterisk is one of open source software that offers IP PBX functionalities and can be used to provide telephone switching services like traditional PBXs. Asterisk can take advantages of VoIP to offer the telephone system that has many benefits over traditional PBXs. However, to take the full advantage, it is necessary to have a system that can thoroughly monitor and analyze the telephone usage. This kind of system is offered by many foreign vendors. Nonetheless, it is very expensive. Besides, their systems cannot support the local numbering plans used in Thailand.

Overview

We have conducted a user survey to collect the requirements of the users using VoIP. We have developed a system called VoIP Manager (Vman) that can interface with the Asterisk system to provide information about the telephone usage. Our system especially supports the local Thai numbering plans. In addition, our system costs less and can be easily enhanced to support future requirements. The goal of this project is to promote the use of VoIP among SMEs to help to increase efficiency and reduce costs in communications.

Key Features

● Display telephone usage in the specified periods of hour, day, month, and year

● Display the overall telephone usage, for example, completed call volume, call duration, etc.

● Display telephone usage based on the defined groups, for example, top groups making outgoing calls.

● Display telephone usage based on the individual users, for example, top users making calls to mobile phone numbers.

● Display in both graphical summary and detailed record of calls.

● Export reports in the electronic formats of PDF and CSV.

3. Estimate and Disseminate Road Traffic Congestion

Road congestion information is a key to effective traffic control. Traffic police needs such information to adjust the traffic light cycle as well as to estimate the demand on road capacity. Drivers also want to know such information in order to select the fastest routes and avoid congested area. However, such congestion information is not easy to obtain because most sensors on the roads (e.g., magnetic, optical, and image sensors) can only provide raw measurements about the roads at fixed locations, such as, number of vehicles and speed of vehicles. In order to obtain congestion information, we need to process the raw sensory data and make intelligent implication about the congestion status.

This project will make use of two mobile sensors (i.e., sensors attached to moving vehicles) as main sources of road condition. The data from cellular phones and GPS receivers will then be processed and analyzed using special techniques to obtain congestion index for each road. The two types of mobile sensors are cellular phones and GPS receivers. These novel sensors will overcome limitations of traditional fixed sensors in twofolds. First, unlike the fixed sensors which require high cost of infrastructure installation, mobile sensors are cheap since most people already carry cellular phones while in their vehicles. Moreover, many vehicles such as taxis and buses already have GPS system installed. Second, mobile sensors can obtain condition of secondary roads as well as main roads.

Figure 3: Estimate and Disseminate Road Traffic Congestion

4. IPv6 Tunnel Broker (http ://tb .ipv6 .nectec .or .th)

This project aims to develop a semi-automatic IPv6 tunnel configuration system with a goal to connect end users to IPv6 networks in a simple, convenient manner. Such system, called “IPv6 tunnel broker”, automatically allocates and configures public IPv6 addresses to end users’ computers regardless of whether a user has a public or private IPv4 address

Figure 4: IPv6 Tunnel Broker: A key for using next generation Internet in developing countries

5. ThaiSarn (http://www.thaisarn.net.th)

The National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) set up a national-wide network called Thai Social/Scientific Academic and Research Network (ThaiSarn) in 1992 in order to promote the use of the Internet in Thailand. ThaiSarn is currently in its third generation, denoted as ThaiSarn3, where the main mission is to promote research in networking technologies and applications.

6. NECTEC SpeedTest (http://speedtest.nectec.or.th)

Internet Speed Test is a service for general Internet users to test the speed of Internet connection. NECTEC SpeedTest has been developed and opened for public Internet users in Thailand since September 2004. The system can record the speed test results and allows each individual user to view their past results any time as well as to have unlimited number of tests.

Figure 5 : Nectec SpeedTest Website

7. Internet Information Research (http://internet.nectec.or.th)

Internet Information Research (IIR) is a project that collects information about the Internet development and internet usage in Thailand since its beginning. The information and data maintained by this project are available on the web site. They are often used as ICT indicators of the country.

8. Research and Application Experiments using WINDS Satellite

The study and experiment using Wideband InterNetworking engineering test and Demonstration Satellite (WINDS) is a collaborative project between organizations in Japan, Thailand and other countries in Asia-Pacific region. The purpose of this project is to build ubiquitous network society and solve the digital-divide problem for the area that network infrastructure can not be accessible. Japan has sucessfully developed and lauched the WINDS sattelite which will be used for research and application experiments in Asia-Pacific region. The government of Japan has supported the WINDS sattelite project and invited researchers and organizations from countries within the WINDS sattellite's coverage area including Thailand to test and use the satellite. This project provides a good opportunity for Thai researcher to learn and exchange experience with the experts from international organizations.

9. Tele-Referral System

A Tele-Referral system is an electronic medical application that facilitates the process of referring patients and communicating between physicians and specialists with accuracy and cost-efficiency. It links an appropriate medical expert to a patient in need, and transfers medical information such as laboratory results and preliminary diagnosis from one location to another for consultation and treatment. A specialist can diagnose some diseases and suggest further treatments. With a referral system, medical records of patients can be sent electronically to specialists for reviewing their cases even before the time of their visits. Thus, treatment time can be reduced.

10. Kanchanapisek Network (KPNet)

KPNet has been created and developed by National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) since 1996 in the opportunity of celebrating the king's 50 succeed to the throne anniversary. KPNet is a computer network that connected and shared information about the king; such as, royal activities, royal projects, royal speeches, royal talents, royal music among organizations in Thailand and also include the interesting information about Thailand. Therefore, people from everywhere in the world can access to this internet network without any charging. Examples of web hosting under KPNet project are as follows:

1. The Golden Jubilee Network

URL : http://kanchanapisek.or.th
http://goldenjubilee.or.th

2. The Photo of celebrating the king's 60 succeed to the throne anniversary

URL : http://palaces.thai.net

3. The king's honor, the father of Thai technology

URL : http://technology.thai.net

4. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn's Personal Affaris Division

URL : http://www.sirindhorn.net

5. Queen Savang Vadhana Foundation

URL : http://www.queensavang.org

6. Prince Mahidol Award Foundation

URL : http://www.princemahidolaward.org

7. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn: Royal IT Projects

URL : http://www.princess-it.org

8. Ratchasuda Foundation

URL : http://ratchasuda.thai.net

9. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn's project: Phufa

URL : http://www.phufa.org

10. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn: Royal IT Projects

URL : http://itfoundation.inter.net.th

11. Suan Luang Rama IX Park

URL : http://www.suanluangrama9.or.th

12. The Science Society of Thailand under the Patronage His Majesty the King

URL : http://www.scisoc.or.th
http://biochemthai.scisoc.or.th
http://ppa.scisoc.or.th
http://stt33.scisoc.or.th
http://tia.scisoc.or.th

Staff Name E-mail Address

1. Chalermpol Charnsripinyo This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Panita Pongpaibool This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Wasan Pattara-atikom This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Kunwadee Sripanidkulchai This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Sadit Sathianpaisarn This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Yuttana Chanawat This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Chatchai Chanin This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Phaweena Tangsri This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Adisak Busaranun This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it