[This document was  extracted from the Annual General Meeting of the

Campbell River Community Network  Sept 21, 1995]



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The Current Technological Status of the Campbell River Community Network  

The community Network is now operating on its own hardware which consists of 

a Pentium communications server supported by a second Pentium news and mail 

server.  Access is provided by 4 US Robotics 14,400 baud modems connected to 

4 Phone lines.  Two more lines are in the works. The core of the system is 

now in place, however further funding is required in cover capital costs for 

rack mount modems to handle additional lines. Our largest ongoing expense 

is telephone lines which cost us $50 each at present and will be going to 

over $70 each (per month) if BC Telís present application for an increase 

is approved. 

We now have the "cable modem" or Cable/Ethernet bridge to connect the 

Community network to the "Wide Area Network".  The Wide Area Network uses 

the Campbell River Cable TV coaxial wiring to link many points of our 

community together by way of a high speed Ethernet network connection. 

This connection operates at 10Mhz or approximately 10,000,000 baud to 

provide a comparison with normal modem communications. This will link 

the Campbell River Community Network to the local school system and 

through them to the Internet. The Internet connection will feature e-mail 

and eventually news groups, telnet links to a small group of other community 

networks or FreeNets will eventually be available. 

Many have asked if they will be able to access the high speed "Wide Area 

Network" directly from their homes.  The answer to this at present is no. 

Access requires special wiring on the CRTV trunk connecting to the location 

to be serviced and a cable modem.  Current costs are in excess of $10,000 

per site which makes sense for large sites with multiple users already 

connected to local networks such as schools etc., but not individual homes. 

Many obstacles have been over come in the past year with a stable hardware 

and software platform ,now in place. We have been "noticed" by local business 

and an advertise presence that will help support the development of the 

Network is beginning to grow.  We look forward to continued growth through 

increased users, commercial advertisers and information providers consisting 

of local service groups, government and regional services both small and 

large. 

Community Net will not for the foreseeable future offer FTP, Web browsers or 

other full featured Internet access tools.  The service a basic one but will 

serve the needs of many.  This basic service should be available by the end 

of October for those wishing to take advantage of world wide instant 

communication. 

Thank You 

Garry Griffin