Internet in Thailand: Our Milestones

The perpetual chronicles of Internet events in Thailand
[Thai Version]

2000.01 The tremendous growth of the Internet in Thailand has been observed:

International Bandwidth growth = 209% on previous year (153.25 Mbps v 49.5Mbps)
Domestic data volume exchange growth = 188% on previous year (17.6Mbps v 6.1Mbps at the Internet Information Research Exchange (NECTEC)
Domestic exchange bandwidth growth = 36% on previous year (457Mbps v 336Mbps)

1999.10.01 The Internet in Thailand has grown up to more than 100 Mbps of international bandwidth, with KSC as the first ISP in Thailand that started a 34Mbps link (simplex, satellite circuit).

1999.05.13 Public Internet Exchange has completed its connection to the last commercial ISP in Thailand (InfoNews). This mark a 100% redundancy in domestic Internet exchange in Thailand. The traffic circulating in PIE reaches 7 Mbps. Savings in domestic traffic routing is about 2,100,000 Megabytes per month.

1999.02.26 NECTEC announced the Internet Information Resource Center, a web site of colections of Internet status reports and graphs/statistics about the growth of the Internet of Thailand.

1999.02.21-24 NECTEC joined a UNESCO mission team to visit Laos's STENO (Science, Technology and Environment Organization) in Vientiane. The purpose of the visit is to plan for the Internet development in Lao PDR, with emphasis on human resource development.

1999.01.01 Thailand's total Internet International Bandwidth reached 49.56 Mbps. This is the first time Thailand's bandwidth ever exceeded 40 Mpbs level.

1998.12.14 Fifth International Workshop on Academic Information Networks and Systems (WAINS-5) Conference at AIT was broadcast to the MBONE via NACSIS-NECTEC 2Mbps link.

1993.09.07 Thai Linux Working Group was founded. Its purposes were to promote local research and development of software and documentation.

The operational targets are to create a Thai version of Linux with GUI and Thai capabilities, and to write up a usable Thai documentation for the software distribution.

1998.08.17 Thailand initiated a proposal to register the Thai Standard coded character set TIS-620 with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) as a legitimate charset for the Internet. The task was carried out by Trin Tantsetthi, President of Internet Thailand. TIS-620 code was adopted by IANA on September 23, 1998. Documentation

1998.07.07 Thailand Cache Infrastructure Task Force (CITF) was founded. The aim of this task force is to build up a national hierarchical cache infrastructure for the country. Hierarchical cache infrastructure is a mesh of cache servers around the world which are set up to help improving WWW access speed and conserve the precious international bandwidth of each country.

1998.06-11 The first web server for the blind was launched by Thailand Association of the Blind. This is a significant breakthrough as many blind people are capable. With computers and some audio attachment, they can work just as good as anyone. Learn more about how to assist blind people. (An article in Thai language by Prof. Montian Buntan).

1998.03.30 - 14:18:53 Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn graciously declared the new SchoolNet@1509 opened. With this new access network, secondary schools all over Thailand are permitted to use a local access number 1509 to access the Internet free of charge. The initial capacity of this service is 1,500 schools nationwide. Details.

1998.02.28: NECTEC launched Linux-SIS Version 2.0. SIS, School Internet Server, is a complete Internet server software suite to enable a PC to connect to the Internet as a node for schools, universities, small business and any organizations. Based on Linux,

it contains Web Administration Tool, web interface of system/user administration tasks, and much improvement from Version 1.0. Linux-SIS is available from NECTEC's FTP site (ftp.nectec.or.th) and CD-ROM.

1998.02.01 An experimental nationwide access service for SchoolNet Thailand using the special access number 1509 was started. This is a major breakthrough for Thailand's National Information Infrastructure. In about a month from now, all schools in Thailand will be given a chance to access the Internet at very low cost. (see also 1998.03.30 above).

1997.11.16 NECTEC has successfully established a "mrouted" server named "mbone.nectec.or.th" connecting to the global MBONE via totoro.sinet.ad.jp at NACSIS, SINET, Japan via NACSIS-ThaiSARN 2 Mbps link.

1997.11.01 The second Internet Exchange Point in Thailand launched its service. This is a research program to look into the feasibility of running an efficient and high availability Internet exchange. Public Internet Exchange or PIE was set up by NTL with cooperation from the Communications Authority of Thailand and the ISP Club. PIE was planned to be running with full NECTEC support for one year and as a "cost-sharing" operation in the subsequent years.

1997.08.19 NECTEC initiated a monthly Internet Connections in Thailand service. The most up-to-date Internet Map for Thailand is released through this web page every month. All Internet Service Providers and major communication hubs and exchanges in Thailand are presented. Please bookmark this link to keep up with the ever changing scene of the Internet in Thailand.

1997.07.31 Army Television (Tor Tor Bor 5) announced the first regular live television broadcast via Internet from Thailand. The round-the-clock service is based on Real-Media technology and works on narrow-band (23kbps) links. Please take a look. Also available from the Army TV is the FM 94.0 Radio.

1997.06.27 First commercial full-time live radio broadcast from Thailand into the Internet was up and running. The Intercast project was a result of cooperation between Loxinfo, Nation Multimedia Group, A-Time Media, JSL and L-Wave. Please tune into the available stations: RadioVote: 93.5 --- Nation: 90.5 --- HotWave: 91.5 --- NoProblem 88.0

1997.05 Thai Government approved the budget of 376 million baht in the next five years to upgrade the nation's Academic/Research network ThaiSarn into its third generation. The ThaiSarn III project will expand the current 2Mbps backbone to 155Mbps ATM backbone, with nationwide coverage to support many thousands of schools. Other companion projects are: GITS (Government Information Technology Service Office) and Thailand Software Park.

1997.05 A Web site dedicated to IT-Standards was launched. All Thai Industrial Standards Documents on Information Technology were published through this web site. There are also some links to other standard bodies around the world, as well as a special sections on publications which are related to the Thai Language.

1997.04.02 Internet Thailand announced its second E1 (2Mbps) International link. This link made ITSC the largest ISP in Thailand, with total International bandwidth of 4Mbps, representing some 30% of the total Internet International bandwidth of Thailand.

1997.04.02 Telephone Organization of Thailand and Internet Thailand jointly introduced the special telephone connection for ISPs by E1/R2 technology. This new method, despite costing ISPs many time more cost on the dial-in service, will help the TOT from being choked with overloaded circuits at the telephone exchange where the ISP is located. Internet Thailand also announced the usage of special four-digit dial-in service 1601 with straight PPP login on these new numbers.

1997.04.01 NECTEC's Linux-SIS (Linux School Internet Server software) Version 1.0 was made available to schools and universities participating in the SchoolNet Thailand Project and ThaiSarn Project. The software suite was intended to be a low-cost Internet Server software alternative to connect to the Internet as a node based on free software, Linux operating system.

1997.02.27 Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn graciously opened the Knowledge Distribution Network portion of Kanchanapisek Network Project. Through this access network, people all over Thailand can dial-in the access number 1509 with PPP hand-shake to access the kanchanapisek network from all twenty area-codes in Thailand FREE OF CHARGE!

About Kanchanapisek network

how to access

1996.12.05 The Golden Jubilee Network (or Kanchanapisek Network in Thai language) was formally opened at 09:09 to celebrate His Majesty King Bhumibol's fiftieth anniversary of accession to the Throne. The network hosts a collection of articles, paintings, motion picture of his majesty's activities. The collection is planned to be continuously updated and expanded to become a virtual library for Thailand.

1996.8.15 Thailand has taken part in a colaborating effort with the National Laboratory for Applied Network Research (NLANR). The Kingdom's entry point for the global hierarchical cache is "proxy.inet.co.th", owned and operated by Internet Thailand Service Center. The machine was initially a 300 MHz DEC Alpha machine with 256MB of memory and 9GB of disk spce. Its humble performance was measured to save an international traffic by some 2GB per day in September, 1996."

1996.7 The Communications Authority of Thailand launched Thailand-National Internet Exchange (TH-NIX) and International Internet Gateway (IIG) to serve local Internet service providers.

1996.5.3 Army Television of Thailand, Channel 5, was the first Thai TV station to have a presence on the Internet. On this day, General Paeng Malakul Na Ayuthaya, Director of the Army TV exchanged the Internet contract with Prof. Pairash Thajchayapong, Chairman of the Board, Internet Thailand.

1996.4.25 Leading technocrats of Thailand met Governor Hunt of North Carolina and the North Carolina Information Highway Team, led by Jane Patterson via a public videoconference. The event was sponsored by Kenan Institute, NECTEC, Communications Authority of Thailand and held at the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel. Please read detailed information from Kenan's Press Release

1996.4.13 Thailand officially joined the 1996 Internet world Expo. On this day, the Thai Pavilion is opened for public view.

1996.4.1 Thailand's most popular English language daily newspaper, the Bangkok Post became online with the Internet, providing daily updated news service.

1996.3 The Second Thailand Internet Symposium NetInfo'96 was held at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, with a special session for Thailand SchoolNet . Approximately 800 people registered for the symposium and many mor visited the free exhibition, hosted by 40 vendors and ISPs.

1996.3.10-11 A Special WWW Homepage for the Princess Mother went on air to supplement the worldwide broadcast of the funeral ceremony of our beloved Princess Mother. The main home page was created by the Communications Authority of Thailand, with information provided by the Public Relations Department; a Special Tribute Section was created by NECTEC and Internet Thailand Services, with the information provided by Post Publishing Company; and a Photo gallery captured from live TV-Pool broadcast, created by Internet Thailand Services.

1996.3.1-2 The Official Homepage of the Asia-Europe Meeting hit rate exceeded 28,000 hits per day. It also features a near live relay of color photographs of the event and the rudimentary picture gallery services such as: visual indexing, search engine and customised photo-album construction.

1996.2 CAT/TOT/NECTEC/Internet Thailand jointly supported high-speed international connection at 4.5Mbps for the Asia-Europe Meeting

1996.2 Internet Thailand Service Center introduced the first commercial E1 (2 million bits per second) Internet connection between Thailand and USA. This link is a fiber optic circuit between Bangkok and Hayward, CA, USA.

First 2 Mbps International Connection (commercial Internet)!

1995.10 NECTEC and NACSIS jointly ran a relay broadcast of Thai TV channels 3 and 9 to cover the live event in Thailand on October 24th: "Total Solar Eclipse in Thailand". CU-SeeMe software was useds d to demonstrated the video service from NECTEC.

1995.9 In this month NECTEC's Webserver reached a new record in popularity at the rate of 300,000 hits in September, 1995. This is the average hit rate of 10,000 hits per day.

1995.9 ThaiSarn started testing the 2Mbps link with SINET (Scientific Information Network) of Japan under the sponsorship of the National Center for Scientific Information System (NACSIS). This marked the first international 2Mbps line for the Internet history of Thailand. Official opening date was October 4th, 1995. [Network Map (66KB)]

First 2 Mbps International Connection (Academic Internet)!

1995.8 The first Thailand Internet Symposium organized jointly by the Bangkok Post and Internet Thailand. (See also: NetInfo'96 The Second Thailand Internet Symposium.)

1995.8 Estimated growth of commercial Internet usage in terms of individual users and corporate node connection was estimated to be about 23% a month!

1995.8 The numbers of webservers registered with NECTEC were 27 academic/research sites, 3 service providers and 7 commercial sites

1995.8 Ban Chang Group was reported to withdraw from Internet KSC. Jusmine International took the place, reportedly at 100 million baht.

1995.8 ThaiSarn sponsored Laos Academic Internet Demonstration, in cooperation with IDRC of Australia. This would developed into a formal grant aid by Thai government to Laos government.

1995.8 CAT approved three additional Internet service proposals from Loxley Information (LoxInfo), Wattachak Group, and Advanced Research Group. Operating license would be issued upon satisfactory business plan and joint-venture agreement.

1995.7.20-23 Internet Thailand Services demonstrated Thailand's First and largest Internet Cafe, featuring sixteen terminals on 2 Mbps line to Internet Thailand at the IT-Week 1995 Conference and Exhibition, co-organised by the Computer Association of Thailand and the Association of Thai Computer Industry.

1995.7 Thailand Total Solar Eclipse webserver went online. Its address is http://eclipse.thai.net

1995.7 Official hostcount at www.nw.com reported 2,481 hosts in 94 active domains in Thailand. Compare with 8,208 host in 114 domains in Singapore and 1,087 hosts in 85 domains in Malaysia. World host count was 6.642 million hosts in 120,000 domains.

1995.7 ITSC joined IT-Week'95 on a large-scale demonstration of the Internet at QSNCC, using 2Mbps link to ITSC.

1995.7 NECTEC Webserver was awarded Top 5% of all Web Sites, with the hit rate of more than 8,000 calls per day to http://www.nectec.or.th

1995.6 The Bangkok Post and NECTEC provided Election 95 Special on the Internet, with all new about the election as from June 1st made available electronically. Its WWW address http://www.nectec.or.th/bureaux/bkkpost/election95/index.html was published on the front page of the newspaper.

1995.6 NECTEC High Performance Computer Center (HPCC) installed the second vector-multiprocessor machine, SGI Power Challenge.

1995.6 KSC Comnet received an operating license from CAT and become the second Internet Service Provider (ISP). KSC Comnet was reportedly a joint venture between Internet KSC (Ban Chang Group, Thai Sugar Group and ABAC) and CAT.

1995.6 Number of individual users of ITSC exceeded 1,000 and corporate nodes exceeded 20.

1995.6 ITSC and ThaiSarn demonstrated Internet at the IT for Society exposition at UN Conference Center via a local 2Mbps line. The highlights of the show were Virtual Reality, Hot Java and Internet Phone.

1995.6 ITSC opened its 512Kbps international circuit to UUNET, VA, USA, the largest international line for the Internet of Thailand.

1995.5 Number of organizations which use NECTEC's server to run their information service exceeded 18.

1995.3 The Thai Heritage Page at AIT http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~wutt/wutt.html was awarded Cool Site of the Day on March 29, 1995.

1995.3 Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) became the first corporate node of ITSC running at 64Kbps speed.

1995.3 Thailand SchoolNet Project was launched. The plan included 30 secondary schools from around the countries to be online.

1995.3 ITSC launched its full-scale services on March 1, 1995.

1995.2 Internet Thailand Service Center (ITSC) received the operating license from CAT and started accepting commercial applications for Internet usage.

1995.1 Internet Thailand Company Limited was jointly planned by NECTEC/CAT/TOT, with its name pre-registered with the Ministry of Commerce for future incorporation. The pricing and service structure was announced on January 12, the day that Thailand declared 1995 as the IT-Year.

1994.12 After six months of feasibility study by a joint working group, the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) and Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT) approved a joint venture proposal from NECTEC for commercialization of the Internet in Thailand.

1994.9 ThaiSarn reached 27 institutions at 34 sites.

1994.7 NECTEC and Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) demonstrated the first local 2 Mbps Internet links to the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center (QSNCC) on the National Communications day. Internet videoteleconference was the highlight of the demonstration.

1994.5 NECTEC put Thailand's first vectorised multiprocessor supercomputer, the Cray EL98, on ThaiSarn-Internet. This task was handled by the High Performance COmputing Center (HPCC)

1994.2 Kasetsart University put her first massively-parallel supercomputer, the MasPar, on ThaiSarn-Internet.

1993.12 ThaiSarn reached 19 institutions (15 academic/research institutions, 4 government agencies).

1993.11 ThaiSarn reached Suranaree Technology University, Nakhon Ratchasima, via a satellite link.

1993.10 ThaiSarn established the first WWW server in Thailand, http://www.nectec.or.th. This web server was maintained by ThaiSarn's honorary webmaster. It was given a title Thailand: The Big Picture.

1993.08 Network Technology Laboratory of NECTEC used Linux for the first time. The installed kernel was SLS Kernel 0.9x. Linux was adopted as a usable alternative to highly expensive UNIX boxes that could perform all required Internet server functions including IP routing among several types of interface (serial, Ethernet).

1993.8 Chulalongkorn University acquired a 64 kbps international circuit to UUNET, VA., USA.

1993.7 NECTEC started her first 64 kbps international leased circuit with UUNET, VA., USA. to carry the growing demands for bandwidth.

1992.12 Six academic/research institutions were online with the Internet on a full-time basis. (Chula, Thammasat, AIT, Prince of Songkla, Kasetsart and NECTEC). The Thai Social/Scientific, Academic and Research Network (ThaiSarn) was formally declared the second-phase of the Inter-University Network Project.

1992.11 The first set of USENET news, and FTP servers went on the air at NECTEC under the names news.nectec.or.th and ftp.nectec.or.th

1992.7 Chulalongkorn University acquired the first dedicated leased circuit for academic Internet connection (9,600 bps to UUNET, VA.,USA.)

1992.6 Four Thai networking specialists from NECTEC and Chulalongkorn University (CU) joined the Internet Society (ISOC) and its first International Networking Conference (INET'92) in Kobe, Japan.

1992.5 A surge of electronic mail usage and USENET news circulation between Thailand and the world due to the May'92 Political unrest.

1992.4 International cooperation between TISI TC536 and ISO was handled by Internet to ensure that the Thai language was properly specified in the international standard ISO 10646.

1992.4 Four academic/research institutions were interconnected via private packet switching network (X.25) in the Inter-University Network Project.

1992.1 NECTEC supported the SIG under the name NECTEC's Email Working Group, or NEWgroup.

1991.12 The first Internetworking Workshop at AIT, and the formation of an informal Internet Special Interest Group.

1991.6 Academic electronic mail network extended to Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, Kasetsart University and NECTEC, using scheduled dial-up lines and a mixture of UUCP and MHSnet protocols.

1987.6 Prince of Songkla University (PSU) and Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) started electronic mail connection with University of Melbourne. This was named Thai Computer Science Network,or TCSNET and was recorded in John Quarterman's The Matrix.

1990.6 More than 50 electronic bulletin board systems (BBSs) were operational in Thailand

1987 Inter-University Network Project was initiated by National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC)

visitors since July 1996.

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