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On Friday, June 30, the Northern Indigenous Community Satellite Network consortium submitted their business case requesting two additional transponders to Industry Canada's National Satellite Initiative. The business case proposes to build a second redundant hub in Montreal, construct local loops in all the partner Aboriginal communities and purchase 2 additional transponders from Telesat Canada to support broadband applications and bandwidth demands over the next ten years. Telesat Canada is partnering with the consortium to make this project possible.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak is also working with Industry Canada FedNor and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation to raise the funds necessary to complete the work proposed. This includes local community networks in those unserved communities and the purchase of the bandwidth necessary to deliver these services.

From the business case Executive Summary ...

The project submission is a result of a partnership established between the Kativik Regional Government (KRG), the Keewatin Tribal Council (KTC) and Keewaytinook Okimakanak (KO). Each organization serves as an operating partner in the Northern Indigenous Community Satellite Network (NICSN). Kativik Regional Government will be the lead agency for the project.

NICSN represents 8 underserved and 35 unserved communities in the northern regions of Quebec, Manitoba and Ontario with a combined population of 46,000 people. In order to deliver an ”equivalent to terrestrial” service, NICSN has been able to raise $8 million of the $31 million dollars as their contribution to the overall project.

We are requesting $22,138,670 from the Canada Strategic Infrastructure Fund in order to deliver the required equivalent to terrestrial services and applications in these communities.

The project being proposed will enable the purchase of two additional transponders to augment existing capacity, and will deploy a second hub to eliminate the single point of failure which exists now. This redundant hub will support the increased demand for critical applications on the satellite network. Broadband applications such as telehealth, distance education, justice discovery and remand hearings, as well as access to government and business products and services, have exceeded existing capacity for effective delivery. The satellite network, presently operating at full capacity, cannot support any further expansion of existing applications or introduction of new ones without scaling up.

As the additional transponders are allocated, the network staff at K-Net Services in consensus with the operators will assign transponder capacity to the network operators in support of the various application demands of their clients and communities. Traffic assignments will be done from the hub site in Sioux Lookout as it does not require travel or site visits. The second hub will be located in Montreal.

The augmented bandwidth will allow for the current and requested demand for multi-site videoconferencing and will have the capacity to support multiple, simultaneous videoconferences. Benefits will accrue from reducing travel costs by shifting them to service provision, thus increasing the quality of life for citizens living in remote areas. Access to services will be improved using Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) currently in place to a fuller extent. Additionally, this will ensure the remote communities will be able to participate fully and equitably with those in the rest of Canada and become healthier places to live, work and play as a consequence of this investment.

The PEOPLE will decide!

The Aboriginal Peoples Choice (APC) Music Awards at http://aboriginalpeopleschoice.com

The APC Music Awards is the only event where you, the fans, have the opportunity to choose which artist will be honoured in each category. Be a part of Canadian Aboriginal music history — sign up today to cast your vote.

This national inaugural event will be held Friday, November 3, 2006, at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba during the Manito Ahbee Aboriginal Festival (www.manitoahbee.com).

DEADLINES

• Artist Submissions - July 31, 2006
• Online Voting Begins - August 7, 2006
• 1ST Round of Voting Ends - September 7, 2006
• 3 to 5 Nominees Announced for Each Catagory - September 13, 2006
• Final Voting Begins - September 13, 2006
• Last Round of Voting Closes - October 13, 2006

RULES AND REGULATIONS

23 categories will be available for artists and industry people to submit. There must be a minimum of 3 submissions in order for each category to be adjudicated. 3 to 5 nominees for each eligible category will be announced on September 13.

Song or CD must have been released in the last 2 years (for 2006 awards). Releases between June 30, 2004 and June 30, 2006 will be eligible for 2006 APC Music awards program.

1. Artist must be a Canadian citizen.

2. Artist must be Indigenous – Metis, Status, Non-Status, Inuit. Proof of ancestry is the onus of the Artist. Exception to this is for Best Aboriginal Music by Non-Aboriginal Artist Category.

3. Artist(s) CD, Song or Program must have been released/aired within the last 2 years to be eligible for the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards (June 30, 2004 to June 30, 2006).

4. Released materials must be commercially accessible. Demos are not eligible.

5. All submissions must be mailed to:
 
Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards
Submissions
Lower Level – 376 Donald Street
Winnipeg, MB
R3B 2J2
 
Submissions must include a completed registration form with a Digital Media Kit (OR) CD accompanied by a 150 word artist biography with an 8X10 glossy photo.

6. Artists must complete and sign the release form, included with the entry form, granting APC permission to use submitted materials for promotion/publication purposes.

7. Submitted material will not be returned.

Click here to download your entry form at http://aboriginalpeopleschoice.com/cim/3200C5_2T62.dhtm

Chief Mike Metatawabin writes in the June 29 issue of Wawatay ... "During my time as Chief, we celebrated many successes which included ... bringing grid based electricity  ... bringing fibre optic-based communication systems to the community."

Robert Cringley writes "If we build it they will come, It's time to build our own last mile." 

This article posted at http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060629.html, caught my eye. This is precisely the Kuhkenah Network (K-Net) model that is being supported with First Nations.  The communities have the option of choosing a network vendor.  K-Net also works on that principal by attempting to allow itself the choice of internet vendors in order to give the communities the best pricing possible.  

The article in it's entirety follows.

Bob Frankston is one of the smartest people I speak to. If you don't recognize his name, Bob is best known as the programmer who wrote VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, realizing the design of his partner, Dan Bricklin.  Bob and Dan changed the world forever with VisiCalc, the first killer app.  After a career at Lotus and eventually Microsoft, Bob would now like to change the world for the better again, this time by fixing the mess that we call the Internet.

The problem, to Bob's way of thinking, isn't the Internet per se, but the direction powerful political and business forces are attempting to take it.  Part of this can be seen in last week's column on Net Neutrality, but Bob takes it further - a LOT further - to a point where it becomes logically clear that making almost any regulation specifically to hinder OR HELP the Internet can only make things worse.  And by making it worse I mean inhibit in a severe way the growth of human knowledge, culture, and economic development.  It's just a choice between freedom and totalitarianism, simple as that

To Bob the issues surrounding Net Neutrality come down to billability and infrastructure.  While saying they are doing us favors, ISPs are really offering us services they can bill for.  Nothing is aimed at helping us, while everything is aimed at creating a billable event.  Take WiFi hotspots, for example.  Why should the telephone or cable company care about who connects to my WiFi access point?  They are my bits, not the ISP's.  I paid for them.  If I can download gigabytes of pornography why can't I share my hotspot with someone walking down the street wanting to check his e-mail?  Frankston's analogy for this is accusing someone of stealing your porch light by using it to read a street sign.

It isn't about service, it is about creating billable events, that's all.  And billable events, by definition, are things we have others do because we are unable or unwilling to do for ourselves.  So a Verizon or a Comcast does us a favor, they say, by licensing rights to a movie and allowing us to buy or rent it over the Internet.  We could buy the rights ourselves, but who would know where to even go?  And wouldn't Verizon, as a big buyer, necessarily get a better price?  When you have a preferred or exclusive provider versus a competitive marketplace, prices are always higher, not lower.  In this case the ISP isn't doing us a favor, they are forcing us to buy from them something that we might well be able to buy from someone else for a lot less.

But they need the money! After all, they spent billions bringing broadband to our homes in the first place.  Don't they deserve to be paid back for that huge investment?

My Internet service isn't free, is yours?  I'm paying Comcast every month and from what I can glean from the company's annual report, they seem to be making a profit from my business.  Is it enough of a profit?  Well they'd always like more, but the current return must be good enough because they keep my bits flowing.

To Bob Frankston's way of thinking this all comes down to who owns the infrastructure.  The phone and cable companies own the wire outside our homes but we own the wire inside. (It didn't used to be that way, you know. There was a time when the phone company owned the wire in our walls even though we paid for its purchase and installation.)  The Internet has been a huge success to date specifically because nobody much controls the electrons.  This is as opposed to services like broadcasting where some perceived scarcity of spectrum allowed governments to determine who could give or sell us entertainment and information.  The ISPs (by which I mean telcos and cable companies) would very much like to go back to that sort of system, where they, not you, are the provider and determinant of what bits are good bits and what bits are bad.

No thanks.

Frankston points out that we build and finance public infrastructure in a public way using public funds with the goal of benefiting economic, social, and cultural development in our communities.  So why not do the same with the Internet, which is an information infrastructure?  Well we did that, didn't we, with the National Information Infrastructure program of the 1990s, which was intended to bring fiber straight to most American homes?  About $200 billion in tax credits and incentives went primarily to telephone companies participating in the NII program.  What happened with that?  They took the money, that's what, and gave us little or nothing in return.

But just because the highway contractor ran off with the money without finishing the road doesn't mean we can go without roads.  It DOES mean, however, that we ought not to buy another road from that particular contractor.

The obvious answer is for regular folks like you and me to own our own last mile Internet connection.  This idea, which Frankston supports, is well presented by Bill St. Arnaud in a presentation you'll find among this week's links. (Bill is senior director of advanced networks with CANARIE, which is responsible for the coordination and implementation of Canada's next generation optical Internet initiative.) The idea is simple: run Fiber To The Home (FTTH) and pay for it as a community of customers -- a cooperative.  The cost per fiber drop, according to Bill's estimate, is $1,000-$1,500 if 40 percent of homes participate.  Using the higher $1,500 figure, the cost to finance the system over 10 years at today's prime rate would be $17.42 per month.

What we'd get for our $17.42 per month is a gigabit-capable circuit with no bits inside - just a really fast connection to some local point of presence where you could connect to ANY ISP wanting to operate in your city.

"It's honest funding," says Frankston. "The current system is like buying drinks so you can watch the strippers. It is corrupt and opaque. We should pay for our wires in our communities just like we pay for the wires in our homes."

The effect of this move would be beyond amazing. It would be astounding.  No more arguments about Net Neutrality, for one thing, because we'd effectively be extending our ownership and control of the wires all the way to the ISP interconnect.  Of course you'd still have to buy Internet service, but at NerdTV rates the amount of bandwidth used by a median U.S. broadband customer would be less than $2.00 per month.  Though with that GREAT BIG PIPE most of us would be tempted to use a lot more bandwidth, which is exactly the point.

There would be a community-financed Internet revolution and this time, because it would be locally funded and managed, very little money would be stolen.  Dark fibers would be lighting up all over America, telco capital costs would plummet, and a truly competitive market for Internet services would emerge.  In 2-3 years whatever bandwidth advantage countries like Korea have would be erased and we'd be back on track building even more innovative online industries.

This would be a real marketplace not a fake one. Today's system is a fake because it depends on capturing the value of the application -- communications -- in the transport and that would no longer be possible because with the Internet the value is created OUTSIDE the network.

"One example of the collateral damage caused by today's approach is the utter lack of simple wireless connectivity. Another is that we have redundant capital-intensive bit paths whose only purpose is to contain bits within billing paths," Frankston explains.  "In practice, the telcos are about nothing at all other than creating billable events. Isn't it strange that as the costs of connectivity were going down your phone bill was increasing -- at least until VoIP forced the issue."

"We have an alternative model in the road system: The roads themselves are funded as infrastructure because the value is from having the road system as a whole, not the roads in isolation. You don't put a meter on each driveway.  Tolls, fuel taxes, fees on trucks, etc. are ways of generating money but they are indirect. Local builders add capacity; communities add capacity and large entities create interstate roads.  They don't create artificial scarcity just to increase toll revenues -- at least not so blatantly."

"I refer to today's carrier networks as trollways because the model is inverted -- the purpose of the road is to pass as many trollbooths as possible. We keep the backbone unlit to assure artificial scarcity. Worse, by trying to force us within their service model we lose the opportunity to create new value and can only choose among the services that fill their coffers -- it's hard to come up with a more effective way to minimize the value of the networks."

A model in which the infrastructure is paid for as infrastructure -- privately, locally, nationally, and internationally can create a true marketplace in which the incentives are aligned. Instead of having the strange phenomenon of carriers spending billions and then arguing that they deserve to be paid, we'd have them bidding on contracts to install and/or maintain connectivity to a marketplace that is buying capacity and making it available so value can be created without having to be captured within the network and thus taken out of the economy.

So why not do it?  Well the telcos and cable companies would hate it.  Who made them gods?

My recent discussion with Bob Frankston started with talk about Microsoft and what that company might do to turn itself around.  "Microsoft seems to confuse end-to-end with womb-to-tomb," Bob said. "Or at least BillG did the last time I tried to speak to him about it. The problem Microsoft has is that it hasn't really given people enough opportunity to add value to the computing. Ironically, Google's APIs and mashups go more in this direction and I do need to give Ray (Ozzie) some credit for joining in this trend. The challenge will be reconciling that with the monolithic platform company. .Net, a stupid name for a great idea, could do very well if liberated from Windows."

So what's a Microsoft to do?  Concentrate less on womb-to-tomb and more on end-to-end by embracing the idea of community-owned networks.  One billion dollars each in seed capital from Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, and Google would be enough to set neighborhood network dominos falling in communities throughout America with no tax money ever required.  And they'd get their money back, both directly and indirectly, many times over.

Microsoft could go it alone, but the point would have to be to build a market, not to control the last mile, and I think the temptation to fall back on old habits would be less with a consortium involved.

But this leads us to the promised question of what else Microsoft might do as it moves forward into an uncertain future?  Well the one thing they aren't doing (hardly any companies do) is to plan for that uncertainty.  I have a plan.

Frank Gaudette, when he was Microsoft's first-ever chief financial officer, told me that he hated having all that cash lying around because it was a drag on earnings.  In the money markets he could make at most a few percent per year.  Investing in Microsoft's own products was yielding more than a 50 percent annual return.  The problem was that Microsoft was making so much money then (and now, frankly) that they couldn't spend it all on their core business.

Where Gaudette saw a problem, I see opportunity: spend it on something else.

In a sense Microsoft is a lot like the Roman Empire.  The Roman Empire's growth and economy was driven by conquering and plundering neighboring regions.  Within the Empire they created a sort of safe economic zone where commerce could work and technology could be developed.  However, that came at a price, as they tended to destroy everything outside the empire as it grew.

Same for Microsoft, whose leaders were greedy and made a number of good, shrewd business decisions.  They were also ruthless. Over time they managed to destroy the surrounding software industry.  Within Microsoft's world was a sort of safe economic zone.  If you were not a threat to Microsoft or if you did something Microsoft didn't want to do (like make PCs) you were able to grow under the shadow of Redmond.  When the emperor spoke, you listened.

It is too early to predict the fall of the Microsoft Empire.  Does Microsoft have the leaders and generals who can lead the company into the future?  Who knows?  In the software world there is nothing else to conquer or plunder.  In other markets it will be hard, if not impossible, for Microsoft to dominate whole industries as it has in the past.  Microsoft now needs to act like a responsible company, work well with others, and grow through cooperation and teamwork.  This will be hard for Microsoft.  The Romans couldn't do it.  The Romans neglected one of their "partners" and eventually that partner did them in.

Today's Microsoft is a great generator of cash.  With some good product refreshes, this cash generation can continue for years to come.  The BIG decision is what to do with the cash.  Microsoft needs to develop new businesses.  Microsoft could have a great future doing things that have nothing to do with computers.  They could be making a great electric car, or great new medications, or any number of other things.  Microsoft could create new industries that could have a huge benefit to the economy.  Microsoft could change the world, again.  Ten years from now Microsoft could be a huge holding company of which PC software is but one part.  They don't have to gut the software unit, which is viable enough to be a great moneymaker for another 25 years if Microsoft manages it well.

Right now Microsoft is like a deer in the headlights.  They are stuck on software and computer stuff.  They can't move.  There are much more interesting growth opportunities out there.

And you know there is a really simple way to proceed.  Warren Buffett announced this week that he's giving $30+ billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to continue their good work of curing diseases so we'll be around to buy more computers.  Buffet is the best builder of holding companies in the history of industry.  The simple answer for Microsoft is to give Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway half of Microsoft's excess cash flow every year.  This year that would be about $6 billion.  With Berkshire's switch to international investing, they'd find productive places for that money.

Eventually Microsoft's value might be mainly in its Berkshire shares, which would in turn greatly increase the value of Buffet's gift to the Gates Foundation.  It seems only fair.

From http://www.timminspress.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentID=89416&catname=Local+News

Forget Toronto field trips, Timmins youth say

Don Curry - Timmins Daily Press - June 28, 2006

Schools should forget Toronto field trips and promote Northern Ontario instead, participants at the second annual Osprey Youth Development Workshop said in Timmins May 25.

Participants, including high school students, college staff and faculty, and young people in the workforce said Toronto field trips send a message to young people that there is nothing worth seeing in the North. They said canoeing and kayaking trips and visits to other centres in Northern Ontario would send a positive message that the North is worth exploring and has a lot to offer.

They said the City of Timmins should promote itself better, pointing out to young people that housing is cheaper and the environment cleaner than in southern Ontario. However, they also pointed out that garbage in the streets, stores with boarded windows and crumbling infrastructure such as arenas and playing fields send a negative message to those interested in re-locating here.

Another major theme among the participants was that 17 is too young to be graduating from high school and graduates should look at options of returning to school for another year, or taking a year of study at Northern College to examine their career options.

They said the message has to be sent that university is not the only option after high school.
Colleges and the skilled trades are excellent alternatives that should be considered.

The skilled trades programs at ?cole secondaire catholique Th‚riault were cited as a positive development. All Grade 9 students take compulsory skilled trades courses in such areas as computer-assisted design, welding and woodworking in state-of-the-art labs. This exposure causes many to look at the skilled trades fields in a new light.

Some participants said each high school could specialize in certain areas and students could take courses at more than one high school. A high school guidance counsellor spoke about the challenge of getting information to students, a point echoed by a Northern College recruiter.

The group consensus was that e-mail is the way to reach young people. Every participant had an e-mail address and they all said they check e-mail daily.

Electronic newsletters sent out by guidance departments could highlight information sessions coming up from various colleges, universities and employers and that would ensure that all students received the information. Some suggested that parents be included in this message delivery system along with graduates who left the city for post-secondary education or employment.

One student mentioned a presentation from McMaster University that everyone was instructed to attend, but she said she didn't even know Northern College had been in her school to make a presentation.

All agreed that career fairs should target younger audiences, starting at Grade 7. They said it's too late by Grade 12 as most students by then have decided when, where and if they are going to continue their education.

They said younger students should have class tours of local industry to inform them at an early age about local opportunities and make them proud to live in Timmins.

Large employers in the city were criticized for not attending the workshop and for always asking for experienced workers when they advertise jobs. Participants asked why companies can't take young people and train them on the job?

The mining industry should get out the message that all its employees are not miners, participants said.

They said mining companies employ office staff, human resources professionals, Information Technology specialists, etc. but that is not generally known. They said they should come into classrooms to talk to students, not simply leave information with guidance departments.

The fact that Northern College has no varsity athletics program was mentioned as a negative because it fails to attract student athletes interested in pursuing sports and misses an opportunity to create school spirit. Participants said Canadore College in North Bay and Cambrian College in Sudbury have varsity teams and Northern could join those leagues.

Participants were hopeful that the Ontario North East University concept now being studied in Timmins would result in making more university programs available in the city.

One round table group noted that although Timmins is a multicultural city there appears to be a divide between French and English.

They said that isolation starts at a very early age, when school buses are segregated by language and religion. They said integrating the school buses would be a major step forward.

They said schools should host multicultural events and invite students from other schools to attend.

Student voluntarism was cited as a positive development and an O'Gorman High School student noted her school recognizes those students who volunteer above and beyond the 40-hour school requirement.

Don Curry, president of Bay Consulting and CEO of Young People's Press in North Bay, was the workshop facilitator.

This Canada Day, the Dominion Institute is launching 2020: Voices on Canada's Future; a four month public dialogue to discover what Canadians think will be the single most important issue facing the country in the year 2020. Visit http://www.twenty-twenty.ca for more information.

One of the topics of interest is Aboriginal Issues at http://www.twenty-twenty.ca/topic_autochtones.phtml ... so now is the time to share your thoughts about what Canada might look like in 2020. The question asked "What does the future hold for Canada's Aboriginal people?"

Other questions include:

• How would the country change if the cost of oil doubles or triples in the coming decade?
• Where and how would we live if global temperatures rise dramatically?
• What will our cities, our health-care system and Canada's role in the world look like?

The CBC and the Dominion Institute have invited 20 leading thinkers to comment on the single issue or event that they think could transform Canada by 2020.

CBC.ca will post the essays online as they are released over the next six months. Coverage on CBC-TV and CBC Radio includes interviews, commentary and mini-documentaries on the ideas raised by each of the thinkers.

Canada in 2020 is an initiative of Dominion Institute in association with La Presse, the Toronto Star and the CBC.

Add your voice to the debate and compete for a $2,020 prize, visit Canada in 2020.

Check out CBC Online coverage of this opportunity to share your views ... visit "Project asks Canadians to imagine 2020" - June 30, 2006 at http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/30/canada2020.html