Telecom review process includes on-line workshop from the Yukon
Everyone interested in public access (ie. CAP sites) or in broadband infrastructure development (ie. BRAND projects) or in the use of telecommunication systems (ie. SchoolNet, Smart, Voice-over-IP telephones or video conferencing) or in community broadband networks or in broadband applications such as telehealth, internet high schools, personal homepages ... and the list goes on ...
If you are interested in working with or using any of these tools then you should register for the upcoming Telecommunications Policy Review Panel public on-line consultation opportunity that is starting during the one day workshop from Whitehorse, Yukon. Register at www.telecomreview.ca/yukon. The Community Access Program (CAP) groups are asking that people put the word CAP after their names.
Everyone is encouraged to listen to the presentations on Friday, September 9 (click here to see the agenda) and to contribute to the on-line discussions during the event and afterwards.
We do need these three review panel members to know that there are a lot of people in remote and rural communities who are demanding that their needs and requirements are addressed. As it stands now, the telecom industry has produced their reports that indicate that they can take care of connecting all of Canada to broadband. Bell Canada provides a process where they are recommending that the rural communities should pay more for the same the services Bell is providing in urban centres so Bell can build (and own) the infrastructure necessary to deliver these services. Click here to see the list of 102 submissions presented to this telecom panel.
If that is the case, then why are these systems presently not in place? Everyone remembers how Bell Canada waited 25 years before putting a telephone system into North Spirit Lake First Nation. They only did this work after being paid 100% of the cost of the work by the community. This picture shows the service Bell provided to the residents of North Spirit Lake for 25 years ... a single pay phone on the outside of a local building (Click here to read the NSL telephone story).
