BCNETwork News

March 2006

Super-fast Internet Service Launched

Steve MacNaull
The Daily Courier, Kelowna

Your high-speed Internet at home can handle about one megabit of
information per second. The new honking big Kelowna Transit Exchange broadband Internet is capable of processing 10 gigabits per second - or 10,000 the amount of an average home hookup.

"The whole world is going digital," said BCNET CEO Michael Hrybyk at Thursday's launch event at University of B.C. Okanagan.

"This is the type of broadband that is needed for research and initial
users like UBC, Okanagan College, Kelowna General Hospital, BCIT
Aerospace and Dargal (travel call centre). But in the future other
businesses may be interested in broadband packages to handle the
increasing volumes they deal with electronically."

The Kelowna Transit Exchange - KELTX for short - is physically located in its own special caged-in area in the basement of the Landmark IV building at Highway 97 and Sutherland Avenue.

The multi-million dollar installation features high-capacity servers
and routers and is hooked up to a fibre optic network and Landmark's special hydroelectric power sources as well as battery and diesel back up power.

"This service has been equated to the railway coming to towns in the
1800s linking communities to the rest of the world," said Robert Fine of the Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission.

"The new model of economic development is research, technology and services and this type of broadband service links us to the rest of
the world for advanced research, commercialization of new technologies and produces and will bring world-class researchers and partnerships here.

Fine added that it will also ratchet up the quality of jobs here and
allow any company in Kelowna or any company that wants to relocate to Kelowna to compete in the tech-driven global economy.

BCNET is the non-profit society funded by universities and the federal
and provincial governments to build high-performance networks for
B.C.'s research and educational institutions. BCNET manages the high-speed dedicated Optical Regional Advanced Network (ORAN) that KELTX is tapped into.

ORAN links KELTX with other universities throughout the province such as UBC Vancouver, Simon Fraser in Vancouver, Thompson Rivers in Kamloops, Victoria and Northern B.C. in Prince George. ORAN in turn feeds into the Canarie network that links all Canadian universities and also connects to a worldwide network of research broadband.

Kelowna-based RackForce is the Internet hosting service provider that's operating KELTX.

RackForce also operates hundreds of other services in the basements of the four Landmark towers. One serve can hold up to 500 web sites.