Media.Knet.Ca

The partnership with Bell Canada is being strengthened today with meetings with the K-Net team and Industry Canada. Four members of the Bell team arrived in Sioux Lookout yesterday afternoon with an initial meeting happening at the airport over a coffee as some people arrived and another was leaving.

Nathalie Micucci and Steve Burton travelled from Ottawa and met Tricia Hartley and Gary Martin in Sudbury to complete the flight to Sioux Lookout. At the airport, they met with Geordi Kakepetum (KO Executive Director) and Brian Beaton (K-Net Coordinator). Today, they will be meeting with Dan Pellerin, K-Net Network Manager and Carl Seibel, FedNor Telecom Project Officer.

The K-Net team is working with the Smart Manitoba team in Brandon to deliver a live video conferencing demonstration highlighting the importance of broadband. The presentation is taking place at Brandon's annual Tech2003 conference today, Oct 22.

Over the past few weeks, Adi Linden and Dan Pellerin worked together with other members of the K-Net technical team to install and implement the DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) feature on the K-Net Satellite Network Management System (NMS). The DVB is the return transport path for the data traffic going to each of the satellite served First Nations.

Local technicians are completing the installations using the directions Adi developed using the photo gallery located in the Network web site. Lyle Johnson did the first DVB conversion in his home community of Weagamow working with Adi. Then Madeleine Stoney completed the installation of the DVB unit in Fort Severn. Angus Miles made the trip over to Sachigo. Yesterday, Jamie Ray was in Webequie successfully getting that site up after travelling from Fort Hope where he got that site up. Bob Popovic travelled to Kasabonika. Ernie Buswa travelled to Cat Lake to complete the installation. Slate Falls will be the last site transferred over to DVB possibly by the end of this week. WHAT A TEAM effort ... Congratulations to everyone and GREAT work!!

Brian Walmark, KO's SchoolNet Special Projects Facilitator, is setting up an extension office for Keewaytinook Okimakanak on the fourth floor of the Kings Stereo building at 135 N. Syndicate Avenue in Thunder Bay. Jesse Fiddler, KO's Multi-media Coordinator, travelled to Thunder Bay to work with Brian is getting the office networked and set up the video conferencing facilities.

This office space will also strengthen our partnership with Conduit Technologies and Northwest Information Systems Inc and our partnerships with other First Nation organizations in Thunder Bay to deliver broadband connectivity across the region.