PLENARY SESSION: ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR COMMUNITY NETWORKS Wednesday, August 18, 1993 1:30 pm - 2:25 pm V-SAT AND RURAL ACCESS Barry Kirk, Senior Associate, Satellite Communications, NGL Barry gave an overview of satellite technologies including broadcast satellites and VSAT and how they might play a role in bringing Community based networks into remote and rural communities. Highlights: * ANIK E satellite - there are two in orbit each with a capacity of 56 standard TV channels with a bandwidth of 2.5 Gigabit/sec. * VSAT (very small aperture terminal) transmits and receives at 56 Kilobit/sec. Many large corporations are using VSAT to network their distribution outlets examples include: CanadianTire, Chevron and GM. Implications and Future Action: * This technology could be useful in reaching remote northern and rural communities where Internet connections do not presently exist. * A proposal is being developed for a feasibility study to trial this technology in a community in Northern Ontario FIRSTCLASS: "MULTIPLATFORM ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION THAT WORKS" Maury Markowitz, Softarc Inc. Maury gave a demonstration of the FirstClass software for the Macintosh demonstrating how a GUI (graphical user interface) could customize and make easy to use FreeNets and other community based networks. Highlights: * FirstClass was started in 1990 as an educational product for the Toronto School Board's Edunet. * It was initially developed for the Macintosh and was ported this year to the Windows 3.1 environment. * The operating environment is transparent to the user and once the system has been configured the systems operator can add accounts and new services using icons, windows etc * FirstClass is now the user interface in over 450 BBs' worldwide and serves over 500,000 users. * It offers TCP/IP connectivity and will be ported next year to the X-windows environment. Implications and Future Action: * SoftArc is considering offering preferential pricing to community networks (possibly in the low thousands depending on the user base) * They are targetting smaller communities where user support and administration and technical support are scarce resources. MCGILL UNIVERSITY CAMPUS WIDE INFORMATION SERVICE Roy Miller, McGill University Roy gave a presentation and demonstration of CWIS, the product that McGill developed and uses to link its campus and provide: information deliver, e-mail, conferencing, want ads, Internet facilities and so on. Highlights: * CWIS was developed at McGill and runs on IBM PCs (under OS/2) and on IBM mainframes. * CWIS is now available in 10 countries around the world and in five languages (english, french, spanish, japanese, and portuguese). It is distributed and serviced outside North America by IBM, and within North America by IBM or McGill. * CWIS supports popular terminals and PCs and permits flexible user ids to allow multiple concurrent log ons and anonymous guest logons. * CWIS licensing is flexible depending on the user base and including support costs ranges in price from $4,000 to $10,000. Implications and Future Actions: * McGill is interested in targetting the community network as a potential market for its product. It believes CWIS to be a flexible and powerful system that can benefit a wide variety of communities both in North America and abroad.