Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (July 16/01) - Covering much of the Eastern Arctic, an Internet service provider called Nunanet Worldwide Communications Ltd. is grabbing hold of the North and pulling it into the future.

It's a 100 per cent aboriginal-owned private company that was started in August of 1995. It has become the only wireless Internet provider in Iqaluit by keeping up with the latest in wireless technology.

"We're the only game in town for wireless," said Nunanet's Marcel Mason. "Up until recently fast wireless wasn't an option here."

Nunanet started installing antennae only months ago and Mason explained that the company is in the process of building a municipal network of receiving and forwarding antennae.

"We have two up now and two more planned," said Mason.

To connect to the Internet, the client uses a wireless card installed in a computer.

He described the antennae as about one metre long and resembling Darth Vader's light sabre.

They are installed on the top of taller buildings strategically placed throughout a community.

One of the antennae collects data, which it then passes on to the second antennae and along from there.

Internet service providers in the North have a whole different set of problems and roadblocks to deal with, compared with their more southern counterparts.

"For instance," said Mason, "in Yellowknife there are either physical wires or a microwave tower or a combination of both."

In the Iqaluit region there is no infrastructure under the ground. "Everything goes by satellite -- and it's expensive."

In the south the main capital cost when setting up an Internet service provider is the physical infrastructure, but in the North the biggest expenditure is the bandwidth cost -- for satellite time.

Mason said one month's bandwidth cost can be higher than the whole start-up of two small Internet service providers in the south.

Mason explained that the size of everything that is sent out or brought in over the Internet is measured in kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes.

A customer's Internet costs increase or fall depending on the amount of information they are sending or receiving.

For $79 a month clients can be hooked up to a 24-hour-a-day Internet connection and transfer 50 megabytes of data.

But a gigabyte, a large amount of data, will cost $495 per month.

Mason said the average user can surf the net and send e-mail for the lower cost. A typical web page is about 40 kilobytes.

"If you are a serious downloader, though, and you are downloading tonnes of software every day," then it is going to be more expensive for the user.

Nunanet also looks after sales of computer hardware and software, office networking and automation systems,and consulting.

Nunanet's competitor in the Internet service provider business is NorthwesTel, but the giant telephone company isn't into the wireless business.

"NorthwesTel has no dedicated connection," said Mason.

Nunanet is connecting about 160 computers by wireless right now.

"We introduced it to the corporate market first but now it's trickling down to the homeowner," he said. "It's going to grow. People aren't happy with connection speeds. This is the alternative."

Nunanet signed up three new customers last week and four more this week.