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NUNAVUT - The dream that is Nunavut broadband is within grasp, Nunavummiut were told at a communications technology roundtable this month.

With a $21 million investment from the federal government, the Nunavut Broadband Development Corporation is planning a series of upgrades to increase capacity, improve efficiency of the network and deliver new services such as high definition video conferencing.

Steven Kanayok and Christine Tootoo of Rankin Inlet examine a geoscience application that shows a detailed image of Nunavut from satellite pictures during the Qiniq network launch in May 2005. - photo courtesy of P. Leaton

"I think over the next year, you're going to see some amazing things," said Jeff Philipp, president of SSI Micro, the company that built and now operates Nunavut's Qiniq network, which serves more than 4,500 users in the territory. "We're finally going to be able to make this infrastructure do what it was meant to do, what I want to see it do."

This year, more money will be spent on broadband in Nunavut than the federal government spends on capacity in Canada, he added.

Vendors are being asked to bid on new services, including video and audio conferencing, "time shifting," which would allow users to move large files when the network is less congested, and connecting all the classrooms in Nunavut to the Internet.

The broadband corporation is also planning to create local connections between servers so that e-mail doesn't have to travel south only to be rerouted back to the North.

"One good analogy is if I need to send a letter by Canada Post, I don't want it to go out on First Air, down to Yellowknife, get sorted out and come back on Canadian North to go across the street," said Darrell Ohokannoak, broadband corporation chairman. "I want it to be sorted locally. It just makes sense."

With the high costs of delivering broadband via satellite, it is hoped the new upgrades and services will make the most of what has become a precious resource in Nunavut.

"One of the main obstacles is that the cost of satellite costs hundreds of times more than what people in the south pay for their signal," said Ohokannoak."It's kind of like water in a desert," added Lorraine Thomas, secretary-treasurer for the broadband corporation. "The costs are astronomical and that's what the vendor has to pay for somehow and that's what the federal government is investing in - helping us defray those infrastructure costs, specifically the satellite bandwidth."

As the federal government is only covering half the cost of that bandwidth, it will be up to the vendor to account for the other half through customer revenues, she added.

The story of bringing connectivity to Nunavut has been unfolding for the better part of two decades through the efforts of people like Thomas, Ohokannoak and Philipp, who have undertaken the immense task of delivering Internet access over two million square miles.

"It's the hardest business case on the planet," said Philipp.

With the first instalment of federal funding in 2005, SSI Micro won the request for proposals to build the network and has since poured millions of its own dollars into the project to keep it afloat.

"My original business case was not that we would make money on broadband Internet," he said. "I wanted a chance to build the network and to prove to people what could be done... I've lived my whole life in the North and I think this is a critical piece of infrastructure."

With an additional $4 million that will be spent this year on infrastructure upgrades in the communities, as well as millions more in expanding capacity, the Qiniq network will soon see its potential realized, said Philipp.

"You'll all see huge speed increases in the Qiniq performance on either one of the plans," he told roundtable guests. "We've built a great network. This network can support 150 megabit into the communities and it can support, without any upgrades, about 50 megabit between communities and back to Ottawa."