011.60 Argentina by John S. Quarterman Synopsis of Networks in Argentina Argentina has connections to all the usual worldwide networks, including the Internet, BITNET, UUCP, and USENET. In addition, there is much use of Delphi and CompuServe. The main language used on all the Argentine networks is Spanish, which may explain the apparent lack of traffic from Argentina on the worldwide networks. Several names are used for networks within Argentina: RAN (Red Academica Nacional, or National Academic Network), RECYT (Red de Ciencia y Tecnologi'a, or Science and Technol- ogy Network), Red Argentina de Salud, and ARNET (Argentine Science Network). These are all intertwined, and there appears to be no consensus on the exact distincions among them. ARNET, the Argentine Science Network, is a national science and research network connected to the Internet as class B network 140.191. The link is by satellite from the machine atina.ar in Buenos Aires through New York City to the University of Maryland, connecting to SURANET, an NSFNET regional. The effective bandwidth is 9600bps. This link is funded under United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Project ARG-86-026. Part of the costs are apparently also supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The link is managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MREC) and the Secretariat of Science and Technology (SECYT). Most of the internal links for the other networks named above are by UUCP, either over dialups or over the national X.25 network, ARPAC. There are several BITNET nodes, acces- sible through a dialup RSCS connection to Chile. RAN (Red Academica Nacional, or National Academic Net- work) for the early UUCP star network centered around host dcfcen at the Departamento de Computacion de la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. RECYT is a name used by SECYT, the Secretariat of Sci- ence and Technology, or Secretari'a de Ciencia y Tecnologi'a, for the current UUCP network. For economic reasons, 60% of the machines on the network are MS-DOS machines. Most con- nections are carried by UUCP over X.25 over ARPAC. UUCP is used for all of UNIX, MS-DOS, and VMS. Effective link speeds vary from 300bps to 9600bps. Red Argentina de Salud is the Argentine Health Net, a UUCP network managed by several organizations, particularly the Children's Hospital of Buenos Aires, Hospital de Nin~os ``Dr. Ricardo Gutierrez.'' There are about 160 connected institutions, including hospitals and health centers, facul- ties of medicine, and government offices. The traffic is about 10 Megabytes per day. All the connections are by dialup telephone, or ARPAC. There has been some confusion within the country about these different networks. This is changing, as the various historical Argentine networking projects coordinate more closely as they grow. Each has its own goals and political issues, but all are finding ways to cooperate. This is a synopsis of an article that appeared in the November 1991 issue of *Matrix News*, the monthly paper newsletter of Matrix Information and Directory Services, Inc. Copyright c 1991 November 29, 1991 Matrix, Inc. Matrix, Inc. +1-512-320-9031 fax +1-512-320-5821 Matrix Information and Directory Services, Inc. mids@tic.com 701 Brazos Suite 500 Austin, TX 78701 U.S.A.