Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Coral Harbour (July 17/02) - A local Internet service provider is pointing an angry finger at NorthwesTel after the telephone company stepped in to provide Internet access to Coral Harbour residents.

This February, NorthwesTel's Internet service, Sympatico, beat out Sakku Arctic to service the small island community in Hudson Bay.

Sakku Arctic is owned by Sakku Investments, the investing arm of the Kivalliq Inuit Association.

Now Sakku Arctic is biting back at NorthwesTel.

In a press release written by Sakku Arctic general manager Ryan Butler, the Internet service provider (ISP) says, "we will do everything we can to help prevent the people of the Kivalliq from being taken advantage of like this. ... We will not roll over and play dead."

Butler says NorthwesTel used money from a CRTC grant to upgrade the phone system in Coral in order to make Internet access possible.

He says that could contravene a Canadian Television and Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruling in 2000 that denied the phone company $4 million in grant money to provide Internet access to the smaller communities in the North.

But NorthwesTel spokeswoman Anne Kennedy Grainger said the phone upgrade was done independently of the Internet service.

"It was coincidental," she said, adding that the upgrade was done in April while Sympatico was introduced in February.

She also said NorthwesTel drafted a business case to ensure that servicing Coral Harbour would be viable.

The CRTC seemed to side with NorthwesTel.

"If they want to have it (Internet access) there they don't have to go through us," said CRTC spokesman Denis Carmel.

Happy and cheap

But members of Coral Harbour, happy with their Internet access, are staying out of the fray. In fact, it was the Coral Harbour Internet Society that opted to go with Sympatico, which they thought would be more reliable.

Formed in 1999, the Internet Society first set up a deal with Sakku Arctic to hook up 10 modems to the Internet. However, according to Butler, problems with the phone lines prevented proper Internet access.

This year, the Internet Society opted to go with Sympatico, which society member Leonie Mckitrick said is much cheaper. The cost to the hamlet was $25,000, for the purchase of necessary Internet infrastructure like modems and software.

Mckitrick said there are now 25 to 30 subscribers, who have a pool of 25 modems to dial in to at a cost of $24.95 a month per user for 100 hours. With Sakku, said Mckitrick, the cost to the hamlet was $2,400 a month for Internet access.

The Society would then have to create its own monitoring and billing system to recoup some of that cost from community members.

"The Society would not be able to sustain itself if we continued (with Sakku)," said Mckitrick.

Plans for the future

In the meantime, Sakku says it will continue to roll out Internet access in other Kivalliq communities. Butler said the ISP will set up wireless high-speed Internet service in Arviat and Baker Lake this year.

Asked why it has taken so long for Sakku to service other parts of the North, he said: "I wish I knew that myself. "My guess is it's just the cost. We spend more on our satellite signal than we do on salaries."

Kennedy Grainger would not comment on NorthwesTel plans for expanding Sympatico into other communities.