Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Baker Lake (Sep 12/01) - If necessity truly is the mother of invention, then the cost of long distance could be regarded as a distant cousin in Baker Lake.

The hamlet is battling the high cost of long distance connecting to the Internet by partnering with Winnipeg's First Nations Power Technologies.

Residents will connect to a server in the hamlet office, which is connected to the Internet via a high-speed, bi-directional satellite system recently installed by First Nations Power Technologies.

The speed or bandwidth can be increased as the community's needs grow.

The hamlet will pay First Nations a set monthly fee of about $2,300 and then charge local customers for their usage.

Hamlet finance officer Joe Aupaluktuq says about 50 people have already signed up for the service.

"We're trying the system out in a few buildings," says Aupaluktuq.

"At first we had some hardware problems, but since they were fixed everything's been going great.

"We're just waiting for NorthwesTel to put a phone hunt group together where you dial one number and it automatically picks up the other phone."

Baker residents have been using a number of Internet service providers via long distance for years.

Users would pay a monthly fee to the Internet provider and incredibly high telephone bills. "People in the community who were using long distance to access the Internet were paying phone bills ranging from $300 to $1,000 a month and the service was slow on top of that.

"The hamlet of Baker Lake was averaging about $2,500 to $3,000 a month in long-distance charges."

The new service will send (upload) at 32 kilobytes per second and receive (download) at 512. It is expected to save the community between $2,000 to $4,000 per month on long distance charges.

Aupaluktuq says the service should save everyone money and generate a lot of interest within the community.

He says the hamlet will offer both a residential rate and a commercial rate and is in the process of setting those rates now.

"It's a win-win situation for both the hamlet and those in the community who want Internet access without having to pay long-distance fees."