by Nancy Gardiner
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 05/97) - The territorial government is giving between $10 to $25 million to a Northern consortium over the next five years to develop a high-speed digital telecommunications network for the NWT.

ARDICOM Digital Communications Inc. was awarded the contract to supply advanced communications technology for the information highway in the NWT.

There's 66 per cent majority aboriginal ownership in ARDICOM and it's 100 per cent Northern. ARDICOM is comprised of Arctic Co-operatives Ltd., Northern Aboriginal Services Company (NASCo) and NorthwesTel.

NASCo's shareholders include the Denendeh Development Corporation, Inuvialuit Development Corporation, Nunasi Corporation and Yukon Indian Development Corporation.

The network will help bring about new methods of transferring educational, health and justice-related information. Other customers will benefit, too. They include other governments, non-profit organizations, private businesses and the public.

The Nunavut Implementation Commission has recommended a decentralized structure for Nunavut, so there is a need for high-quality communications systems to support government operations, says John Todd, GNWT minister of finance.

"This network will open opportunities for enhanced data transmission, videoconferencing and Internet connections, and allow for such things as distance education programming and on-line medical diagnoses," Todd says.

Twenty communities are scheduled to be hooked up in 1997, with work starting this fall. The rest should be linked by late 1998.

According to an ARDICOM press release, the new digital network "will reduce the cost and improve the delivery of government services."