Remote First Nation community networks in northern Ontario using satellite connections still online
Northern voices heard
ROB MCMAHON FOR METRO - October 06, 2011
Thanks to a satellite network managed by a First Nation organization, Ontario’s most remote communities could participate in the provincial election.
Early Thursday morning, Fort Severn First Nation Band Manager George Kakekaspan learned his community couldn’t phone in their polling station results.
That’s because the Anik F2 satellite, which supports voice and data services to northern Ontario, experienced a ‘technical anomaly’ that wiped out connections in the fly-in Washaho Cree community.
“We opened up the band office this morning and tried phoning with the land lines, and nothing ... We’ve been using cellphones and IP phones all day,” said Kakekaspan, reached through his Keewaytinook Mobile cellphone. “It’s taken us a long time to get this far. We’ve been pushing it with KNET a long time — and it’s worked out pretty good for us.”
Fort Severn, along with 11 other remote Ontario First Nations, retained communications services on Thursday through the Northern Indigenous Community Satellite Network, or NICSN.
NICSN is a co-operative satellite provider operated out of Sioux Lookout and managed by KO-KNET services, the telecommunications arm of Keewaytinook Okimakanak Tribal Council.
Since August 2009, NICSN has used the Anik F3 satellite — an arrangement that enabled it to continue delivering services despite Thursday’s troubles with Anik F2.
“This morning, we heard Kasabonika Lake wasn’t taking phone calls, then we heard everyone’s KA satellite dishes were down. All of these are on Anik F2, and it really clicked in when people said they couldn’t phone up north,” said Terrance Burnard from NICSN.
Thanks to NICSN, community polling stations worked with KNET through email and voice-over-IP phones to transfer election results to the south.
IMAGE - Terrance Burnard, Network Technician at NICSN, left, and Lyle Johnson, KNET’s Videoconferencing Engineer, stand in front of the NICSN earth station in Sioux Lookout.
What is NICSN? - More on the Northern Indigenous Community Satellite Network:
* Formed in 2005 Partnership between First Nations tribal councils in Ontario and Manitoba, and the Inuit Kativik Regional Government in Quebec
* Delivers satellite bandwidth to communities at a fixed rate, regardless of location
* Supports public services, including the remote delivery of health and education
* Elections Ontario worked with NICSN to deliver training to remote polling stations through videoconferencing
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Telesat is having issues with it's Anik F2 satellite (see the CBC news story below).
This has taken out the Telesat Bell phone service in all satellite served First Nations (Cat Lake, Eabametoong, Fort Severn, Sachigo, North Caribou, Neskantaga, Peawanuck, Webequie, Muskrat Dam, Slate Falls, Marten Falls, Kasabonika) as well as ALL Xplornet Services.
This has NO effect on the NICSN / KO-KNET Satellite-served First Nations that are providing IP Phones, internet, videoconferencing, as well as cellular service that should continue work as normally.
Everyone is encouraged to let people know that since these services are still operating that they may be able to use the existing IP phones for EMERGENCIES along with any of the other online communication tools.
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Service being restored after satellite outage disrupts communications in North
Ross Marowits - The Globe and Mail - Oct 6, 2011
Many Canadians, especially those in remote areas of the Far North, lost all communications Thursday after Telesat’s powerful Anik F2 satellite suddenly ceased operating.
The disruption or “loss of earth lock” affected services for customers including Shaw Direct TV, government agencies, and The Canadian Press news agency.
Other companies that use C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band services, frequencies that are primarily used for Wi-Fi, telecommunication and broadcast services, were also affected.
Remote northern locations were the most affected, with 10 of 33 communities served by NorthwesTel seeing disruptions from the outage.
First Air airline cancelled 48 flights, stranding about 1,000 passengers just before the Thanksgiving long weekend.
“It’s one of those high-priority travel weekends,” said spokesman Chris Ferris, who added that the airline planned extra flights on Friday to get everyone where they need to be for Saturday.
Telesat said the satellite suddenly ceased functioning around 6:36 a.m. ET and turned away from the Earth as it is programmed to do in safety mode. Services began resuming late Thursday night.
The Ottawa-based owner and operator of one of the largest and most powerful telecommunications satellites orbiting 35,800 kilometres above the Earth said the satellite faces the sun to charge its batteries.
The root cause of the shutdown is under investigation but Telesat doesn’t believe it was caused by a solar storm of the kind that disrupted its satellites in the early 1990s.
“It’s not clear yet but all indications are that the spacecraft is healthy, that there are no permanent issues with the satellite,” spokesman John Flaherty said in an interview.
Telesat believes the problem lies within the satellite but declined to specify if it is related to the construction or design of the spacecraft that was launched in 2004.
The satellite supports a variety of services including voice and data for Internet, broadcaster and business customers in Canada and parts of the United States.
Shaw Direct uses several satellites so its service was only partly affected. Bell TV uses a different satellite while Telus said its customers faced no service problems.
NorthwesTel said long distance service was disrupted in satellite communities. DSL-based Internet in Iqaluit, other data services in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut and some cable television channels were also impacted.
Bell Aliant said about 7,800 residential and business customers in northern Ontario and northern Quebec were affected by a disruption to long distance telephone service and some TV channels.
Novanet Communications, which provides customers the satellite signal from Telesat, said the process of restoring service is similar to what needs to be done after the breaker in a home shuts off.
“Once the earth lock has been established it’s a matter of slowly turning on all the transponders one at a time,” said Novanet official who didn’t want to be identified.
Telecom analyst Carmi Levy said such satellite disruptions can be significant because they affect voice, Internet, television and telecom services.
“It’s a very rare type of failure for a satellite to simply go off line in an unplanned fashion,” he said from London, Ont., where his phone service was affected.
“There’s enough redundancy built into these birds, that for example if a circuit fails there’s usually a number of other circuits that can take over for it.”
Even banking ATM machines that rely on satellite service can be affected, although there have been no reports of widespread outages, Mr. Levy added.
Quebec cable and telecommunications provider Videotron said some of its customers in the Bas Saint-Laurent and Cote-Nord regions and a dozen channels were affected by the problems.
The Canadian-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board said regular communication channels had been affected with that province’s offshore oil platforms. But the board said operators have other ways of communicating in case of an emergency.
Medevacs and search and rescue operations were still active, said Iqaluit Mayor Madeleine Redfern, stranded in an Ottawa hotel on her way back home. But she said the disruption highlights the fragility of communications in the North, as underlined by a recent government report.
“We are all very vulnerable,” she said. “If (the satellite) had actually gone down more severely, then we’re talking about days, if not weeks of disruption.
“And then we find ourselves in a situation of safety if not security, so it is a concern that we don’t not have the same amount of options available in southern Canada.”
RCMP are able to communicate through radios. And although the majority of northerners use NorthwesTel as their service providers, two smaller companies that route through different satellites were still operating.
Satellite phones were also working.
Telesat has a fleet of 12 satellites, with three more under construction, and manages the operations of additional satellites for third parties.
With files from Bob Weber in Edmonton
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Satellite problem causes phone and Internet outage - Could take 12 to 18 hours to get Telesat's Anik F2 back into proper position
Oct 6, 2011
A malfunctioning satellite is affecting long distance telephone and Internet service in communities across the north.
Northwestel said all communities across Nunavut, N.W.T. and Yukon that receive their long distance calling and data service via satellite are affected by the outage, which began at about 6:30 a.m. ET.
People in Iqaluit are reporting they are without cell phone service and long-distance calling, bank machines and debit-card machines. At least one bank in the city has not opened today as a result. Flights are also being delayed.
The service disruption appears to be due to problems Telesat is having with its Anik F2 satellite.
At the present time, the satellite is pointing in the wrong direction, away from the Earth.
Telesat is working to regain proper Earth lock, which may take 12 to 18 hours.