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Opening Session:
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The local host, Sureswaran welcomed the AI3 team to Penang. The meeting
Chair person, Suguru Yamaguchi, announced the meeting agenda and asked
everyone was asked to introduce oneself.
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C band groud station
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technical aspects on C band ground station
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Suguru explained the procedure to become a C-band partner that a research
proposal has to be submitted to the AI3 for approval before a letter of
agreement is sent out to a prospective partner. At present MY, PH and SG
have submitted their proposals and the letters of agreements will soon
be sent out. No proposal has been received from CN and VN as yet. Once
done, partners have to apply for appropriate licenses and procure necessary
equipment for their ground stations. This is to be followed by a link up
process where JCSAT team will be sent to inspect the sites.
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AI3 network operation
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the current status of AI3/Ku
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the future configuration of AI3/C and AI3/Ku
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status updates
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Japan - Hub Station
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As of last week, financial approval has been made to procure equipment
for the ground station at SFC, Keio University. Purchase order is yet to
be sent out. A license is to be applied for which is expected to take around
six months. Thus it is expected that the ground station on the Japanese
end will be operational in the second qauter of 1998.
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China
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Necessary permissions have been obtained but currently facing with procurement
problems.
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Malaysia
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Purchase order not yet completed but expected to be ready for operation
in Jan 98.
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Philipines
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Singapore
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Everything is ready and expected to be operational in Jan 98.
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Vietnam
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Permission has been obtained but facing with financial problem.
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Suguru informed the meeting that a Taiwanese research institute is
requesting to become AI3-C partner. There is also a request from Korea
through Kilnam Chon.
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AI3-C ground station technical specifications will be put on the AI3 homepage
by Suguru.
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AIT report, technical aspects
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AI3 Policy and Funding
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Jun Murai explained to the meeting that as of August 1, 1996 an agreement
was signed by SFC Keio Uninversity and JSAT for the Ku-Band phase where
JSAT allocated the use of their JCSAT3's transponders worth US$1.3M/Year
to the project covering until July 31, 1998. AI3 did submit for and received
a grant from the Japanese Ministry of Postal and Telcommunications (MPT)
for JP Yen 5,000,000.- to partially support an extension of the Ku-Band and
travel for 3 years.
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A new 3-year contract between Keio University and JSAT including the use
of JCSAT's C-Band transponder and an extension of the Ku-Band beyond August
'98 to provide for an international testbed is being prepared and is expected
to be signed in the very near future.
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Jun explained that the next phase of the AI3 will involve Ku- and C- Band
bridge while NAIST and SFC connection is using ATM. In this next phase,
the role of APAN and its relationship with AI3 will be of significant importance.
The research emphasis as put in the Keio and JSAT new agreements are on
future international (global) testbed, real-time and synchronization of
media.
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It is also expected that in the near future AI3 will collaborate with other
research initiatives from Europe or US.
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A question was raised regarding possible involvement of other satellite
company. The meeting agreed that since AI3 was set up for research purposes,
thus we should be open to new offers. Interesting research on multi-hop
can then be pursued.
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Troubles and Challenges
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discussion on events and troubles happen between our last meeting and now
including from UNUˇˇproject(JP), Thai link, Indonesei link, and remote
education challenges between id/hk.
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Thailand
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Kanchana reported on recent development in the AI3 activities in AIT that
a meeting was held with CAT researchers where research proposals will be
made for CAT's funding to support for additional equipments. Various institutions
will soon join in the AI3-TH either with our caching project or on our
possible future experiment with unidirectional link like KMITL. A list
of research activities which are taking place at AIT was tabled. A common
interest on carrying out a systematic observation on the weather conditions
was expressed. A research on the impact of the weather conditions on the
Ku-Band performance through actual experiment should be a good contibution
from the AI3. Onno was asked to prepare a one page proposal listing down
equipment needed.
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Link problems were explained by Olivier Nicole. Two problems were identified.
At the data link layer, it is suspected that the driver for the RISCOM
card is not functioning properly. Baba and Olivier have agreed to do futher
tests before arriving at a final conclusion and applying corrective measures.
Another problem is at the physical layer where the power drops from AIT's
end. It is suspected that the newly constructed fence at AIT ground station
is blocking the transmission thus causing the power drop.
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Indonesia
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On distance education side, Onno described several on-going projects supported
by the World Bank. He informed the meeting of the Higher Engineering Education
Net which is funded by JICA. A technical English writing course by Waterloo
University funded by the National Research Council is soon to begin.
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On the ITB-AI3 link problems, from the Eb/No monitoring strong correlation
between the power drops from ITB and the weather conditions was observed.
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And from the previous month equipment failure, it has been decided at ITB
to purchase a spare set of equipment in the near future.
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Other activities web sites were announced including the network monitoring
http://netmon.itb.ac.id/.
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UNU - Japan
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Jun Murai thanked AI3 partners for their involvements in the UNU conference
in July. The meeting will be reported in a paper by Keiko Okawa and will
be put on the Web.
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Problems related to the VDO quality of the UNU conference were discussed
by members of the meeting including the application software and the sound
quality which need to be improved by high quality microphone.
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Suguru took this opportunity to announce the possibility for another live
VDO conference session for the forthcoming environmental conference which
is to be held in Kyoto during 1-12 December. Details will be provided by
the middle of November.
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House keeping
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Onno raised a question on AI3 Webmaster whether there should be a central
Webmaster or should there be a webmaster on each site. We agreed that we
design the web site skelton design and will start building Web contents
at each partner's web site.
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New mailing list on cache <cache@ai3.net> and mbone <mbone@ai3.net>
have been added.
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AI3 and APAN
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what is APAN
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routing coordination
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research topics working in the framework of he APAN
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WG participations in the APAN
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Next meeting
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The meeting considered having an AI3 meeting linked with APRICOT which
is to be held in Manila during 16-21 Feb, 1998. AI3 could be held on Feb
15. A proposal has been received from the Philipines to host the meeting.
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Several problems have arisen due to travel restrictions for the Malaysian
where four months is needed for a travel approval thus it is important
that the next meeting should be announced soon enough. Other possible choices
of meeting places were considered. It was, however, agreed that the next
meeting place should be a new member or a new installation.
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One other choice which recieved interest among members was a meeting in
Japan on March 7. The only objection brought up was the cost of living
in Japan which outweight the travel cost to/from Japan. Japanese members
agree to work on possible funding for accomodation and food for foreign
members during the meeting. The issue is to be followed up in details by
e-mail. It was also agreed that the meeting should be of two days allowing
more time for fruitful research exchanges.
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Future Direction
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We discussed several action items in AI3 project. Kanchana proposed that
a series of electronic technical reports from AI3 should be started to
help promote AI3 research activities.
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She volunteers to look after the series.
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