Media.Knet.Ca

A snap shot of a busy five days visiting communities in Northwestern Ontario with the team from the Gold Trail Open Network Society (GTONS). Click here to visit an earlier KNews story for additional information about this organization. GTONS is leading the partnership of CANARIE and K-Net in developing an on-line training resource and tool kit to support community based Broadband Network Technicians who are working in rural and remote communities across Canada. Be sure to watch for the video clips gathered during this trip that we will be posting on-line.

Sioux Lookout (Monday and Tuesday - July 14 and 15)

• travel day from Victoria and Vancouver for the GTONS team of Sandy McElroy, John and Quinn Savage
• tour of Sioux Lookout (the community fibre optic loop, the C-Band satellite earth station, the wireless network and all the partner organizations connected to this hybrid broadband network)
• meetings and taping with the K-Net team along with video conferencing with remote communities working with the Kuh-ke-nah Network (Fort Severn, Balmertown, LaRonge SK, Sydney NS, Winnipeg MB, etc)

Poplar Hill First Nation (Wednesday, July 16)

• flight from Sioux Lookout to Balmertown so have Les Meekis join the tour over to Poplar Hill
• met with Erica Owen and Susan Owen at the Poplar Hill e-Centre
• went through the different buildings, identifying items for the to-do list to address technical requirements and updates
• New band office is being wired for Cat5 cabling throughout with the appropriate outlets being located on the building floor plan. The plans has the contractor running all the cabling back to a patch panel and install boxes and covers in the offices
• KIHS classroom was inspected for any preparation work for the start of the 2003-2004 school year. Some wiring needs to be cleaned up and some boxes installed for patch cords along with the health programs being relocated
• the local school requires some attention with some classrooms requiring cabling and some computers needing to be connected
• the e-Center requires some ongoing maintenance to ensure the entire building is properly networked and supported
• at the nursing station the antenna will be removed and sent back to Sioux Lookout.

North Spirit Lake First Nation (Thursday, July 17)

• Darlene and I met with the Circuit Judge from Kenora to discuss video conferencing in the communities. Some video conference calls were made to demonstrate the capabilities and the opportunities. The Judge and party were impressed by the opportunities that were possible and will be contacting us for more details and how to work with K-Net and the communities to meet their needs and the needs of the people participating in the justice system.
• provided some technical and maintenance support for updating video drivers and air conditioning for cable head end
• throughout the visit in each community Les and the crew from BC visited community leaders, children and organizations getting their video footage and meeting

Balmertown (Thursday evening and Friday, July 18)

• continued the meetings and video taping gathering information and sharing experiences about best practices and lessons learned in developing community-based broadband networks in rural and remote communities
• return trips to respective communities to work on the production of training and support material for the growth of this industry for other communities across the country.

Click here to check out the pictures of the North Spirit Lake leg of the trip.