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.