CONNECTING THE NORTH.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Braodband communications in Northern Ontario - Brief Article

Sudbury has paved the way for the information highway, linking remote communities to a high-speed network.

Northeastern Ontario's access to the broadband highway has just be en paved. The extension of the high-speed, fibre optic highway or broadband telecommunications network outward from Sudbury is being heralded as a major step toward improving the competitiveness and prosperity of the region.

NetCentral, one of the five Northern Ontario community-based networks, is leading the way in expanding Internet links between institutions, connecting businesses and linking 40 communities across the Sudbury and Parry Sound districts, Chapleau and Manitoulin Island, to connect to the other four major Northern Ontario centres.

It is regarded as an investment that is not only expected to allow better access for Sudburians and northerners, but deliver Internet service to support the needs of most high-tech corporations on a level that is as good or better than any major city in Canada.

"There's probably more fibre per capita in Sudbury right now than any other city in Ontario," says Gary Polano, the executive adviser to Sudbury Mayor Jim Gordon and special projects manager.

Sudbury's move toward creating a telecommunications strategy began in 1997 with the creation of Sudbury Regional Network (sureNet), a partnership comprised of 21 health, education, municipal and private-sector stakeholders in the Sudbury area. It later created the footprint for NetCentral.

Spurred on by the United States deregulation boom among hydro companies in electricity and telecommunications in the mid-1990s, officials at the then-Sudhury Hydro copied the model by building high-speed connections to link their substations while selling surplus capacity to business.

As broadband novices, they brought in AT&T Canada and Cisco systems as technical and marketing support before laying about 400 kilometres of fibre throughout the city to link educational institutions, hospitals and businesses on private point-to-point networks.

Some funding from the Ministry of Economic Trade and Tourism, Access Partnership Program (TAP), and other leveraged resources allowed for the installation of state-of-the-art switching equipment known as asynchronous transfer mode. Considered the backbone of the $5million network, it supports Internet protocol and allows for the creation of virtual private networks for health or security purposes.

Greater Sudbury Telecommunications Inc., a subsidiary of...