Media.Knet.Ca

The headline reads, "K-Net Brings Broadband to Northwestern Ontario, pages 13-15", in the latest issue of Telemanagement - The Angus Report on Business Telecommunications in Canada (June 2002, Number 196). Read the stories at http://photos.knet.ca/telemanagement (posted with permission from Telemanagement) The first paragraph ... "Four years ago, the residents of North Spirit Lake, Ontario, had no telephone service and no Internet access. Today they have both - and the Internet came first." The story goes on to describe the steps taken since 1994 by Keewaytinook Okimakanak to bring broadband services into the KO First Nations and the region. The last section of the story summarizes the work being done by so many groups and individuals in this region and is worth sharing. It is a story about partnerships and what can happen with the right combination, as in the case of K-Net and all our partners (and the list continues to grow)! "K-Net and the five northern Community Broadband Networks (CBNs) we reviewed last month, demonstrate that it is possible to deploy broadband networks now in rural and remote parts of Canada. What it seems to take is a combination of "bottom up" and "top down" initiatives. It takes determination and commitment in the community itself. It also takes government funding programs, to bridge the gap between what communities need and the willingness of private carriers to meet those needs. It also takes champions: individuals in local communities and at the top levels of government, and at every level in between, who have both a vision of what broadband networks can accomplish, and the dogged determination to make it happen. None of those, by itself, can achieve the desired result. Governments can't roll out networks by fiat; communities can't create networks single-handedly; champions by themselves are powerless. But put them all together - combine a relatively small amount of public funding with a lot of local ingenuity, hard work and resolve - and almost anything can be achieved."