Twenty-five years ago, Thailand was connected to the Internet for the
first time at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). In the late
1980s AIT was a key hub for the early development of the Internet in
Thailand, and was the site of the country’s first email.
In June 1988, AIT’s Professor Kanchana Kanchanasut successfully
registered the Internet top-level domain name “.TH”, a move that
ushered the country into the world of the nascent Internet. For the
first time, email addresses were possible for members of the academic
community in Thailand through dial-up accounts to “ait.th”.
Online connectivity began at the Asian Institute of Technology after it
received a Sun Unix-based workstation that was used as a server to
establish the Kingdom’s first Internet connection, hooking up with
regional internet guru Mr. Robert Elz of the University of Melbourne,
as well as with the United States.
By mid-1988, Prof. Kanchana received authorization to oversee providing
domain name registration services under “.TH”. The domain name was
registered by AIT for an experimental network called the Thai Computer
Science Network (TCSnet). Through the support of the Australian
International Development Agency, ACSnet software enabled AIT to
connect with Prince of Songkla University, Chulalongkorn University,
and Thammasat University. AIT and PSU were the gateways to the
Australian Academic Research and Education Network (AARNet) through
which the TCSnet community could communicate with the global TCP/IP
network or Internet for the first time.
The domain name registration task was jointly provided by AIT and
Chulalongkorn University until 1999, when newly formed Thai Network
Information Center Foundation (THNIC) took over. Today .TH remains the
Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the country, and is
administered by THNIC.
To mark the historic founding, THNIC Foundation celebrated the “.TH”
25th Anniversary with a one-day conference on 6 June 2013 in Bangkok.
The event brought together a who’s who of the country’s Internet
professionals who paid tribute to the key innovators involved in the
development of the Internet in Thailand a quarter century ago.
H.E. Mr. Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan, Minister, Prime Minister’s
Office, Thailand, delivered an opening address. Praising the work of
the early academic pioneers for their impact on the country, he said
the Internet is so much a part of people’s daily lives it is like
“American Express” in that, as the saying goes, “you can’t leave home
without it.“
In a keynote address Dr. Steve Crocker, Chairman of the Board of
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) spoke of
how the need to bring people together, to connect work and to solve
problems drove American computer scientists' ground-breaking research
on networks in the 1960s. Considered one of the Internet’s fathers, Dr.
Crocker witnessed its birth. As a UCLA graduate student, he helped
create the ARPANET protocols which were the foundation for today's
Internet.
At the event, AIT Presidents past and present delivered reflections on
AIT’s role in the development of the Internet, and its present work. In
his remarks, Prof. Alastair North, who was AIT President at the time,
paid tribute to Prof. Kanchana. The computer science research division
at AIT has spawned a huge number of internet and ICT professionals
across Asia, he said.
Reminding the audience of what work was like in Thailand prior to
introduction of the Internet, AIT Acting President Worsak
Kanok-Nukulchai said AIT.TH was a prime example of the Institute’s
historical role for introducing new technologies that positively impact
the country and region.
Prof. Kanchana, currently AIT Acting Vice President for Research, said
her work to connect the country online in the 1980s was quite
unintentional. “AIT did not have email,” she explained. It was the mode
of communication she had grown accustomed to while completing her
graduate studies in Australia. Returning to Thailand, she found the
country’s lack of connection to be a major drawback, which motivated
her to make the Internet a reality.
According to Prof. Kanchana, the TSCnet gateway at AIT was under the
care of graduate student Ms. Pensri Charoenchai, and email addresses
were provided to academic colleagues both within and outside AIT
through dial-up accounts to AIT. The server provided the first online
connection gateway out of Thailand, and the main applications used on
the network were email for academicians and file transfer protocol
(FTP).
From there, the Internet quickly flourished amongst Thai academicians.
In 1994, commercial Internet Service Providers (ISP) were born and
provided the nation’s general population with access to the Internet
for the first time.
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