Media.Knet.Ca

The Chiefs of Keewaytinook Okimakanak are meeting in Winnipeg for their Annual Christmas board meeting. This year, the meeting is being distributed via video conference and the Internet using a variety of o­n-line communication tools. Check out the pictures from the meeting. As well, people are invited to check out the meeting by visiting http://smart.firstnation.ca and follow the links to the Live Chat and Discussion Forum sections.

Les Meekis, KO's Community Manager for the Smart Communities Demonstration project, is organizing regular meetings with the KO First Nation Smart team members to discuss a variety of topics. o­n December 5, Les worked with the Keewaywin FN team to bring together seven sites in a video conference meeting to discuss the data entry for this year's community surveys as well as the plans for this year's community ICT planning workshops in each KO First Nation. Darlene Rae took and distributed the minutes of the meeting from her office in North Spirit Lake.

Other topics discussed at this meeting included developing individual business cases for each of the Smart team members to ensure their positions are sustained after the Smart project is completed. Plans for the Christmas Chiefs' meeting were also discussed.

GREAT team effort!! Check out the pictures of the meeting (we were connected at 256K from each site using the K-Net IP bridge o­n the K-Net Network).

On Thursday afternoon (Dec 12) K-Net staff (Dan and Brian) met with a number of people to discuss the efficient deployment and use of the public benefit, C-band satellite transponder. Industry Canada FedNor (Carl Seibel), Government of Northwest Territories (Linda Maljan, Gerry Sheridan, Jacquelyn Burles) and SSI Micro (Jeff Philipp) were also in attendance. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a strategy to see how a pilot demonstration might be facilitated in some of the NWT communities using the TDMA platform supported by SSI Micro.

With the reduction in the amount of bandwidth being made available to K-Net (12.5 mhz) o­n this transponder because of the sharing of the resource with the governments of Nunavut (12.5 mhz) and the Northwest Territories (5 mhz), there is not space left o­n the K-Net portion to accommodate the requested 3 mhz of CIR for a GNWT pilot service.

Discussions around the possible development of a shared DVB resource that included using our mutual allocations of transponder space o­n continuous carriers (ie. the K-Net allocating 3mhz at o­ne end of our space and GNWT allocating the 3mhz up to the guard band space) lead to the conclusion that further meetings with both Telesat and Northwestel are required.

The need to discuss the possibility of migrating this public benefit resource across a number of transponders is becoming an important consideration for all parties involved. For the 3 parties (K-Net, GNWT and Nunavut) involved in the use of this public benefit, the ability to spread "an equivalent bandwidth to that availabe o­n o­ne transponder" over a number of transponders will result in everyone being able to accommodate more partner communities and a more efficient use of the resource. We will be able to "grow" this resource and distribute the additional costs involved in having additional traffic and partners.

The benefits to Telesat are that they would be able to sell additional commercial bandwidth as the need and applications are developed using the public benefit resource as well as a much more efficient use of the available resource. This multi-transponder strategy will provide all the partners involved with the ability grow into commercial bandwidth without building new infrastructure which will be good for everyone with the increase capacity and usage.

I wanted to share the results of our best week ever: 12 consults in the KO Region!

1. Fort Severn - Dr. Debbie Basco saw 5 patients during a virtual clinic from C&W Hospital in Vancouver -- and effectively doubles monthly access to physician services for o­ntario's most remote community;

2. North Spirit Lake to Deer Lake: CTC/CHR does 2 spontaneous consults with Nursing staff

3. Poplar Hill - 3 telepsychiatry sessions

4. Menoyawin Hospital - 2 consults - o­ne internal medicine and o­ne paediatric

Keewaywin had no consults as the Coordinator was in Balmertown for clinical training.

A special thanks to Adi Linden and K-Net crew for riding the QOS o­n the Fort Severn connection during the doctor consults from Vancouver.

Fabulous to see the efforts of so many competent people make this system work so well!

John Rowlandson, KO Telehealth Project Manager

James Kakepetum (Keewaywin Health Director), Orpah McKenzie (KO Health Director), John Rowlandson (KO Telehealth Project Manager) and Dr. Ed Brown (NORTH Network Director) traveled to Ottawa to meet with Health Canada officials o­n Wednesday Dec 11. Representatives from Health Canada included Al Garman (Ontario Regional Director, FNIHS), James Adams (Western Zone Director, FNIHS) and Ernie Dal Grande (FNHIS, Manager).

This meeting was the first opportunity for Mr. Garman to meet with Keewaytinook Okimakanak about the different health services initiatives being worked o­n by the team, in particular the Telehealth project. The information and final report from the Zone Telehealth Workshop was shared and discussed. The KO team provided the group with a powerpoint presentation detailing the work completed to date and the program needs to ensure its sustainability. Everyone was very helpful and supportive in identifying the best approach to ensure the o­ngoing operation of the KO Telehealth service.

James volunteered that Keewaywin be part of the FNHIS (health information system) version 2 pilot initiative. This will mean that they will be integrated as a network service demonstrating multiple health applications over their single community network.

The team also had a marvelous (and totally spontaneous) meeting with Minister Nault in the lobby of the Confederation building. Afterwards they were able to have a focused 40 minutes with Patti Skillen at the Minister's Office in Hull talking about funding options for the telehealth project and what INAC can do (capital, CTC wages) to support this development in the First Nations. Also discussed were other cross-over issues such as telehealth support for special needs, special education and Head Start (early child development).

A meeting with the National Nursing Association also proved to be a value opportunity to share information and obtain their support for the work being done by the KO Health Services team.

Anishinaabeg of Kabapikotawangag Resource Council Inc. is beginning their planning process to bring a broadband connectivity solution into their member First Nations. Their ICT Committee met at their office in Sioux Narrows o­n December 11, to review the proposal submitted to the BRAND and FedNor programs for funding. Advertising and hiring an ICT Coordinator will o­ne of the first steps taken by the committee, as they begin to prepare their business case for submission by the March 31 deadline.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak staff attended this meeting to share best practices and lessons learned. Carl Seibel, FedNor’s Telecommunication Officer, joined the meeting by teleconference.

The community of Webequie had a balloon drop from the Northern Store at midday. Many excited community members gathered around o­n this beautiful winters day. People young and old went to watch or participated in grabbing the balloons. The balloons contained pieces of paper which indicated a prize number or a dummy prize.  The store contributed those prizes to the community.

The Pelican Falls Timberwolves played the Sioux Lookout Warriors Tuesday evening at 7:00 at the Sioux Lookout arena. The Timberwolves were looking for their second win of the season against the Warriors, in this, their second match up. The game was carried live o­n Wawatay Radio 89.9 FM.

Submitted by Solomon Kakegamic ...

Last night at the Sioux Lookout Arena the Timberwolves got their 2nd victory of the season defeating the Sioux Lookout Warriors 8-6.  The team was led by Jonathan Kejick who had 5 goals and 3 assists.  Other scorers were Kyle Peters with 1 goal and 4 assists, and Greg Pascal with 2 goals and 1 assist.  The Timberwolves got excellent goaltending from Rodney Kejick who made several key saves in the third period.

Overall , the team received a strong effort from all players who contributed to the victory.  They would like to thank those staff, students and public who supported the team.  

Gitchii Meegwetch

Timberwolves Team

The Pelican Falls First Nations High School website is now up and running. Check it out at http://pelican.knet.ca. It is a place for sharing stories, pictures and information. The website was created as o­ne part of a CO-OP placement at Keewaytinook Okimakanak.

Enjoy is invited to look through the information that is posted here so far and to leave a message in the guestbook.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak representatives met with a number of existing and potential partners between Nov. 26 and Dec 1 to discuss connectivity strategies and new initiatives. The main purpose of the trip was to meet and set up the goals and agenda of Industry Canada’s First Nation SchoolNet Regional Management Organizations (RMO). Carl Seibel accompanied K-Net o­n the trip because he will be providing local IC support

for the RMO project, along with Christine Cosgrove from IC’s Regional office in Toronto.

On Nov 27, Dan Pellerin and Carl met with Jeet Hothi, Marketing director of the Communications Research Centre to looked at the Milton project. This wireless technology is an attempt to build a low cost 32mbps wireless solution for low density subscriber areas. The intent is to have the transmitters priced around $10k with end units in the $100 range. Currently the project is working with limited funding. Additional funding could move the project up from a 12 month implementation to approximately 6 months. Funding is in the area of $100K. Marketing and production considerations can be had which may be of benefit to a First Nation organization or consortium. Transmitter sites are point to multipoint with intelligence built into the transmitters. Hub sites can talk to each other in the form of 802.11b. As sites are deployed they remember their range levels and as such they do not interfere with each other as additional sites are brought o­nline. Frequency ranges of 900, 2400 and 5800 mhz are expected to be available. The 900 mhz range is expected to have a throughput of 8mbps and 5.8mhz will have 32mbps throughput. End points are expected to be low cost with ethernet, power and rf built in that can be connected to a switch or a computer.

Recommendation: We take another look at this product as it could be something that

is deployed by a school or band office for teacherages, band offices or other applications.

The same afternoon, Dan and Carl met with representatives from FCNQ (Barry Kirk), KRG (Denis Beaudoin and Joe) and IC (Jacques Drouin and Carl) to discuss the needs of KRG and FCNQ for usage o­n the public benefit transponder allocation. From the outset everyone has been informed that there is not enough capacity to fully satisfy the needs of the FCNQ and that any CIR is to be application based with a small amount set aside for each of the partner communities. There is no large CIR allocation o­n the public benefit transponder for individual customers or for internet access o­nly. Additionally there is not to be two classes of access set up based o­n economic advantages. Having this all clarified up front, everyone looked at providing partner communities with 64K of CIR southbound and fair weight queuing northbound with DVB feed. Exact nature of DVB feed is still to be determined as the different partners work together to identify the best solution to address everyone’s needs and utilizing the strategy to establish the most efficient use of available resources.

Later that same day Dan and Carl met with Jeff Phillips of SSI Micro at a

restaurant where they both happened select. This meeting resulted in discussions about development options for the public benefit transponder and ways of maximizing efficiency of usage. The decision was made to look at approaching Telesat to determine if bandwidth could be swapped to provide opportunity to better expand the resource.

The next morning (Nov 28), Dan, Brian and Carl met with Frank Rosano, Wayne Lewis and Mehran Shariatmadar from the GTIS Satellite team. Discussions focused o­n strategies to see how the federal procurement strategy serving different federal government departments and programs could be used for securing connectivity solutions from community networks that meet minimum standards. Additional discussions looked at the possibility of K-Net becoming a supplier to the federal government. Frank Rosano has been tasked with working with K-Net to identify a business case for community and regional networks to be utilized by federal government departments and programs. A short meeting was held with Robert Vaive to discuss what could be done with the MSAT radios o­n hand at K-Net. The possibility of using them for voice communications was briefly discussed. Dispatch radio is an application that could be looked at for KiHS use. Dan promised to follow up with Robert.

Later that morning, Carl, Dan and Brian met with Lise Picknell, Smart Communities Program Manager, to discuss SMART community project claims and reporting procedures.

A lunch meeting with Bell Canada sales team of Steve Walsh and Steve Burton proved to be a valuable networking opportunity. Items of discussion included determining interest levels within Bell for partnering with K-Net o­n federal government procurement connectivity projects. As well, talks began surrounding mutually beneficial promotional strategies about successes achieved under the Smart Communities Demonstration project and community networking achievements. The second year national conference and the Regional Management Organization roles and responsibilities were discussed as well to identify future partnership possibilities.

Later that afternoon, Dan and Brian met with Paul Wilker, Carol Sage and Dennis at Smart Capital project site (Smart@Central) just before the CRC gate. This meeting resulted in the possibility of working with the Smart Capital project and their video conferencing site to showcase the K-Net project to international delegations and Federal government department folks who need to meet with others in the region. Together we can promote the Smart Communities project building o­n the work done by Smart Capital to showcase successes.

That evening was the informal meet and greet event for all the Regional Management Organizations. Some excellent connections were made with all the different groups and the regional IC offices across the country. In particular Pierre Gendron, the Director of SchoolNet and Christine Cosgrove of the Toronto office who will be working with us to ensure the First Nations across o­ntario are well served.

The RMO meetings began early o­n Friday morning with the opportunity to meet Ross MacLeod, the Director General of IHAD programs and invite him to travel to Northwestern o­ntario to visit Keewaytinook Okimakanak. The agenda provided a full day with good networking and sharing with each of the six RMOs selected to serve all the First Nation schools across the country. K-Net staff did a presentation about the work being done under the Smart Communities Demonstration project and how the work of the RMO will complement the migration of community networking efforts to other First Nations. Six dynamic groups with an mutual interest to work together to advance the cause of IC SchoolNet connectivity agenda.

Friday evening, Dan met with Surabhi Patel-Widmeyer to discuss strategies to support Health Canada, their staff and programs, to work with K-Net for connectivity rather than creating their own networks. Working with the National Nursing Association will be o­ne way to find new partners that could use the network to support the nursing staff in the First Nation Health Centres.

Saturday morning RMO meeting involved developing o­ngoing communication and development strategies and wrap up. K-Net did a short presentation about the national virtual conference concept and the opportunity to develop video conferencing resources in each of the RMO to improve communication between the regions but also to develop local capacity to demonstrate these essential communication tools. Dan Pellerin was voted to be the technical resource for the RMOs across Canada (that will teach him to leave the room before the meeting was over).

A Saturday lunch meeting with Jeff Phillip of SSI Micro turned into a full afternoon meeting discussing o­ngoing partnership and business opportunities to ensure we develop the most efficient use of the public benefit transponder resource. Follow up is required to discuss bandwidth and power adjustments with Telesat to make use of multiple transponders so we can optimize the use of this resource using the TDMA protocol and network management system. Recommendation that a meeting with a Telesat representative (invite Larry Boisvert) be held in Sioux Lookout to discuss the options and what Telesat is willing to do. This can support the long term implications and ensure proper direction is given to accompanying staff to support this work. Additionally we can use this opportunity to arrange for publicity o­n the public benefit program highlighting the successes achieved to date. FedNor and other Industry Canada officials would can also be invited to attend.

On Sunday afternoon at the Thunder Bay airport while waiting for the plane back to Sioux Lookout, Dan and Brian met with Howard Hampton to discuss both the political and community implications surrounding the use of Management Board Secretariat’s Integrated Networking Project (INP) to provide connectivity solutions for provincial ministries and programs. Follow up required with Howard’s office to identify possible strategies to highlight how INP and SSH can undermine community and regional networks such as K-Net.

Overall, the trip proved to be very successful, with lots of very productive meetings resulting in many new allies and potential partners to assist Keewaytinook Okimakanak in our work as the Aboriginal Smart Communities Demonstration Project.