Whats up with Broadband

Hi Everyone,

So, what’s up with Broadband? A year or so ago the Lasqueti Internet Access Society [LIAS] managed to get a contract with Telus and a partnership with QF that set in motion a chain of events that has brought high speed internet to Lasqueti. Some of you know the particulars of this community service but some of you don’t, so I thought I would take a minute to explain who and what LIAS is.

LIAS is a not for profit organization that began in 1999 when False Bay School received a T1 internet connection from the School District. LIAS was formed and applied to become a member of the Community Access Program. This application was granted and, in conjunction with the School District, the Internet Center was born.

The Community Access Program or CAP began as a government initiative to connect Canadians with each other and with the rest of the world. There were great hopes that government services and even voting would become on-line realities. Then there was a change in government and the new guys were not as “into” technology as the old. In any event the CAP program remained but is under constant threat. Our Internet Center is government funded through Industry Canada and they grant just enough money to the center to squeak by. Each year we are told the funding is gone and then by some miracle [due in large part by effective lobbying by grassroots organizations] we are pulled from the brink of extinction. Each year this miracle is harder and harder to obtain.

So LIAS decided a few years ago to take on a new project: Broadband. The thinking behind this was that when our Center is no longer funded, the community would a.) Still have high speed access and b.) Our Center could be funded by the Broadband subscribers. We recognize that perhaps only 20 percent of the island population will be served by the Broadband project and the rest of the community needs a place to go to get “connected”.

Since the inception of LIAS there have been many thousands of volunteer hours given by at least a hundred volunteers. Since we have such small population base we see this as a huge community effort and we applaud us all.

We now have this fabulous website that has also been developed by community members. Since it is such a fantastic way to share information I will, from time to time, be giving updates on what is up with LIAS, the Center, and Broadband here on this message board. I will also post news and bulletins about the Broadband signal and maintenance of the network.

For those of you who may not know who we are, here is a little introduction.
LIAS Board of Directors:

Rainie Polaski

Laurence Fisher

Raymond Lipovsky

Don McDonald

Louis Durchanek

Nadine Simpson

Karl Darwin

Jim Powell – Principal of False Bay School

Technical Team:

Larry Manahan

Shae Jones

David Croft

Webmaster:

Joseph Fall