Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 22/02) - If you curse while using a painfully slow Internet connection from a remote location, does anybody hear you?

It appears someone finally has.

A Yellowknife company, Millennium Technology Solutions, is offering new technology that makes it faster and cheaper to use the Internet in remote locations where cable and DSL connections are unavailable.

The service provides two-way, high-speed Internet access via satellite.

Cambridge Bay resident and local computer whiz James Patterson currently uses a one-way satellite system and is still dependent on tediously slow phone lines to send information.

He is considering the new service and said two-way satellite will eliminate "a lot of frustrations and outrages."

"I'll be going that route no matter what. It's a matter of when, not if."

Patterson said the company is still fine-tuning its service in areas as far North as Cambridge Bay.

"They came here a few weeks ago and found they'd have to make some changes. But they are going the extra mile to see what will work. And they are willing to make it work," he said.

Thousands of dollars

Until now, in remote locations, two-way satellite would cost from $800 to several thousand dollars each month -- plus thousands more for hardware and installation, said Norm Fillion, president of Millennium Technology Solutions.

With one-way satellite service, you can receive data, but require a telephone line to return e-mails and send information. Not only is the uplink sluggish, it ties up the phone line -- an inconvenience, especially for business.

With the two-way satellite service offered through Millennium Technology Solutions, you don't need the phone line as part of the connection.

And it's fast, said Fillion. Not as fast as cable, but 10 to 20 times faster than standard dial-up.

An American company, Hughes Network Services, is the satellite owner and service provider. It sells the service to LinCsat -- which is based in Toronto -- and Millennium Technology Solutions then sells the hardware and the service in the North on behalf of LinCsat.

The hardware and installation cost runs from $2,000 to $12,000 -- depending on the size of dish required for the geographical location.

The bigger the dish, the greater the cost, said Fillion. Larger dishes can cost between $6,000 and $12,000.

The monthly fee is $140.

Testing in Cambridge Bay

The two-way system has cut the cost of getting high-speed in a remote location considerably," said Fillion.

"It allows for the average business and individual to have high-speed at a reasonable cost."

Fillion explained when the company travelled to Cambridge Bay to test the service for clients in that community it found it needs a larger dish than the one the company brought.

He said the signal level, based on the size of the dish it brought, was "borderline."

With bad weather, the system could lose about 15 per cent of its signal strength.

"The solution is a larger dish," he said. "We're still working on that."

He said company is returning to Cambridge Bay for more tests in the next few weeks.