Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Baker Lake (Sep 18/02) - Internet users in Baker Lake are cruising the information highway in style these days. The hamlet went online about a year ago through the RAMTelecom broadband satellite network.

RAMTelecom operates its own satellite broadband network, delivering high-speed services to more than 20,000 people in Canada.

Joe Aupaluktuq has been the driving force behind bringing the Internet to Baker.

He says although the community was happy to be hooked up a year ago, frustration began to mount over the problems often associated with dial-in service.

The constant busy signals and slow speeds were driving customers away.

Aupaluktuq says those problems are a thing of the past since RAMTelecom installed a Waverider wireless network earlier this month.

"The biggest difference, from our clients' viewpoint, is that they don't have to dial in anymore," says Aupaluktuq.

"There's never a busy signal and we no longer require the use of user names or passwords."

Aupaluktuq admits there are times when bad weather can hamper the service, but says those times are few and far between.

Other than that, Baker Internet users have service available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"The speed is 1012K when downloading and 64K when uploading. That's quite fast and our clients are more than happy with the speed of their connections."

The satellite relay is set up in a central location at Baker's hamlet office.

Aupaluktuq says all clients need is a wireless Internet card installed in their computer.

He says an antenna is provided and, once a signal test is conducted, the information highway is ready to be explored.

"We had been losing customers due to the nightmare of the dial-in system, but now the list of names of people wanting to get on the system is steadily growing," he says.

"RAMTelecom has given us the same capability as cities in the South. In my opinion, more communities should take advantage of its (RAMTelecom) experience in this business."