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The Peace Region Internet Society was formed in 1994 to provide affordable access to the Internet for individuals, businesses, and organizations in the Peace Region of Northern British Columbia. When you join PRIS, you become a member of a society with over 6000 members. It is run by you through an elected Board of Directors. All revenue generated by PRIS is used to further the goals of the Society.
Here is how it works: Once a year, usually in the autumn, PRIS holds an Annual General Meeting. At this meeting, one half of the directors stand for election for a two year term. An effort is made to ensure that all communities are adequately represented on the Board. The new board elects an executive for the coming year.
The board meets monthly to determine PRIS policies and direction. Meetings are open to the public, and members are invited to attend. Minutes of all meetings are posted to the membership after ratification.
The day to day operations of PRIS are managed by seven salaried staff members.
PRIS is a member of the BC Internet Association. The BCIA is a non-profit society representing the
interests of the Internet industry in British Columbia.
PRIS is also a member of the Canadian Association of Internet
Providers.
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PRIS telecommunications services are provided through working agreements with:
 BC Tel Advanced Communications |
 Westel Telecommunications |
PRIS also wishes to acknowledge the assistance of the following businesses, for their assistance in letting people know about the PRIS services, and for assisting new members in starting memberships:
| Chetwynd M & J Computing |
Dawson Creek Software Emporium |
Fort Nelson Integrity Computing |
Tumbler Ridge TR Public Library |
By design, PRIS does not make a 'profit'. Those who have joined more recently may be surprised by this. Aren't Internet Service Providers usually business entities striving to cash in big on the burgeoning Information Technology explosion? Isn't this the world of Sympatico, AOL, ATT, Ma Bell and other giants?... Well, it wasn't always like that.
In the late 70's and early 80's, the Internet grew from being a military communications network (designed for redundancy in case an enemy missile knocked out a key telephone line), to a communications network connecting Universities and academic institutions. In early 1993, The South Peace Senior Secondary School had acquired two dial-up lines into the Internet through the Community Learning Network (CLN). At that time, there was no World-Wide Web...just old-fashioned printed characters on a teletype screen. That was the total extent of the Peace's connection to the Net. Other than that, you dialed Long-Distance.
In late 1993, an invitation was extended to all interested community members to meet at Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek. The meeting was dubbed "Communications 1993". It was spearheaded by Craig Young, Al Brett, and Gordon Currie. The meeting was attended not only by school, college, and science representatives, but by a broad crossection of people from private businesses, community orgasnizations, and Joe Q. Public. All had heard of the evolution of data communications in 'The Rest of Canada', and shared a concern that the Peace, could, as usual, get left behind as the rest of the world started heading down the Information Highway. There was definately sufficient interest expressed to convince the organizers to try to address their concern locally.
At that meeting is was decided to seek seed funding to set up an 'Internet Node' (Look it up in a dictionary of Archaic English expressions.) It would consist of one computer connected to the Internet at 19,200 bps. 8 modems (racing along at 14,400 kbps) would dial into this computer using VT-100 teminal access mode, and thus indirectly connect to the Net. It was to be "State of the Art" technology.
The Peace Region Internet Society was registered under the Society Act on 11 July 1994.
Not enough can be said about the dedication of Larry Legault in those early days. Larry was seconded on a half-time basis to procure equipment, configure all the stuff, arrange communications contracts, open bank accounts, register with the Tax guys, sign on new members, and advise these members on how to configure their computers. If this work was to be done on a half time basis, then his whole day must have been 39 hours long.
If you do not know the difference between a kilobit and a byte, or can't use your computer without a mouse, you may wish to skip some of the next paragraphs.
(Now that they are gone, let's continue.) The system at that time consisted of a Sun SPARCstation-5, 70-Mhz., 64-meg UNIX box (UNIX?), a Xyplex 16-Port Terminal Server, complete with 1,200 page manual, and 8 USR 14,400 Modems. The parts arrived in August of 1994. In September, the pris.bc.ca domain was registered, a 19,200 baud link was installed through BC Systems, and PRIS was talking to the world! Gradually, services such as Archie, FTP, Telnet, Gopher, Pine, Kermit, z-modem, sendmail, pico, and TIN were added to the Sun's capabilities (Refer back to your dictionary of Archaic English Expressions....), and members started to trickle in.
The Internet was fun to use then. If you wanted to see a picture, you would log on to the Xyplex, telnet into the Sun, FTP to NASA, download a picture of the earth from outer space to your working directory on the Sun, use Kermit to download it from the Sun onto your machine at home, decode the file, and print the picture. The whole thing took about 12 minutes... It was that easy... and exciting!
If you did not know exactly where a piece of information (stored in files) was, you even had a search engine...of a kind...sort-of... You could use these newly evolving features, such as Archie, and his improved side-kick called 'Veronica' with your keyboard interface. Type in a word, and you might get back a listing of, say, 30 locations that had files which included the word you were looking for. Once you had this list, you jotted it down, and then you could type in the address of the listed article you thought you might try to chase down, logging in as 'anonymous', with a password of your e-mail address. Download the file to the Sun, open it with your pico editor, and discover that your search for new wheat varieties had yielded you a recipe for wheat muffins....We learned to type the word 'anonymous' very well.
By the early summer of 1995 PRIS had 350 members, but over 200 of those were Northern Lights College staff members, who did not have to pay for their accounts. We had added 2 lines in Chetwynd and Fort Nelson, and 4 in Ft St John. Speeds in these towns were limited to a blazing 9,600 baud.
PPP was operational in August of 1995. While using the net was easy, the initial configuration of Windows to handle PPP connections was more difficult, and Jason was kept very busy helping people set up. By the time Jason left for University in the fall, the increase in membership, and the increased bandwidth needed to handle this graphical environment, had put a strain on the capacity of our connection link to the world. PRIS entered into a contract with Westel Telecommunications to increase the size of our connection to the world from 19,200bps to 128,000bps. It was overkill, but this bandwidth would last us a lifetime!
A very interesting thing happened when PRIS started offering PPP. Prior to this, people who were interested in the Internet were already well versed in computer usage. When the World Wide Web became prevalent, people started going out and buying computers specifically so that they could get on the Net. These people needed technical support not just about the Net, but also about such rudamentary operations as how to resize a window, ("Oh, you mean this phone cordy thing has to be plugged into my phone jack?.. I thought it was an antenna.")
People signed up in droves.. These people were scary: They had not been in since the early days. They had no concept of how the Internet worked, how many different protocols and hardware devices had to mesh perfectly for things to work...nor did they care. They wanted something that worked: all the time, every time...like the phone or the radio. They did not have the patience to wait for a picture to download in 30 seconds. They wanted pages to load across the Net just as fast as they would load from their hard drives. No sooner had PRIS designed self-installing disk sets in order to make set-up easier on Windows 3.1, than Windows 95 came out, with entirely new software. No sooner had PRIS stocked up on 14,400 modems, than 28,800 modems became available.
By the end of 1995, PRIS had grown to a membership of just under 700. Tumbler Ridge had joined the network, with two dial-up lines. Larry and Jason had moved on to other things, and PRIS' day to day operations were being undertaken by one full-time contract position. PRIS started handling its own bookkeeping at this stage, with the able assistance of Terri Barber, seconded from the College staff on a part-time basis.
PRIS was financially self-sufficient, and had satisfied all of its initial grant obligations.
PRIS moved into its present luxurious quarters in the fall of 1996, and the classrooms of the Peace joined the Infobahn.
PRIS also established its own POP in Chetwynd, again in concert with SD59. The POP was joined to the world with its own independent 128k line to the world. PRIS could handle modem speeds of 33,600 baud. Community Access Project (CAP) funding helped with the initial set-up costs. PRIS also established a POP in Ft St John, in facilities it had rented from a local business. A 128 K line connected a pool or 30 33,600 baud dial-up lines to the world. Tumbler Ridge and Ft Nelson continued to operate on leased modem pools, on analog lines, with maximum attainable speeds of 26,400 baud.
By the end of 1996, PRIS membership was about 1800, an increase of over 1000 in one year. PRIS was providing free Internet connectivity to all of the public libraries in the Peace. Bandwidth from Dawson Creek had increased twelve-fold in that year, from 128k to 1,442,560 bits per second.
During the year, system reliability increased, with redundancy in all the major components of the system. New hardware was purchased to handle the increased loads that members were placing on the system, Software was written to enable PRIS to identify and deal with potential system problems rapidly before they affected users. PRIS staff developed methods to reduce (filter out) the increasing loads of unsolicited junk mail (SPAM) that PRIS members were being subjected to. PRIS also started hosting virtual domains, enabling businesses to have the equivalent of a fully independent server on the Internet, without the normal difficulties of having to acquire their own high-end computers, connections, and software.
Concerted efforts were directed towards the provision of Internet access for the schools in Tumbler Ridge and the
improvement of the quality of the dial-up service in that town. This led to a venture in the world of satellite Internet
connectivity. It would prove to be a costly venture, and one which most would wish to forget. Tumbler's connectivity problems
were ultimately addressed with the establishment of a POP at the Senior Secondary School, with 30 33,600 Dial-up lines and a
128 k dedicated land link to Dawson. A small portion of the funding for this was obtained from the Community Access Project (CAP).
1997 also marked the arrival of competetive ISP's within the Peace. PRIS welcomed the broadening of the Internet services available to the community, at the same time ensuring that it would continue to meet community needs at the best possible cost.
Our partnering business in Ft St John also decided to venture into the ISP business independently, and so we felt it best to part ways (amicably). PRIS was fortunate in that it was able to relocate to a site adjascent to its outbound line, so that the PRIS feed plugged straight into the Westel backbone, leading to the very cleanest possible, broad-bandwidth connection to the world.
PRIS acquired its new logo. Graphical design work was donated by one of our members, Judy Arndt.
The year closed with a membership of 2100.
And all ISP's had to do to support these new speeds was to trash all their existing equipment, and get new stuff for $40,000. In the summer of '98 PRIS capitulated, and started exploring the potential for supporting these higher speeds. The local telco could start supporting digital lines in late November, and PRIS's first 56k lines arrived shortly thereafter in Dawson Creek and Ft St John. At that time, PRIS could also support single and double channel ISDN for those who needed faster connections yet. These higher speeds could not be supported in the other towns, due to telco limitations.
With the advent of such new Internet features, PRIS discovered that members were spending more time on-line. The traditional user:line ratios of 10:1 were no longer tenable. In order to reduce the likelihood of busy signals, user:line ratios were decreased to 8:1, well above industry standards. In addition, PRIS introduced a line management protocol that would ensure more equitable access for all members: Users who tended to 'Park' on line for typically more than 10 hours a day found that they were being 'bumped' to make room for others, on those rare occasions when all lines filled up. They received a polite e-mail, explaining what had happened. The introduction of this protocol went unnoticed by 99% of PRIS members.
What didn't go unnoticed was the reduction by $5.00/month in the price that members needed to pay for their connectivity. For the first time, the benefits of belonging to a not-for-profit society became evident in members' pocket-books.
The PRIS web site underwent major brain surgery, becoming smart enough to automatically recognize our individual members. With this increased intelligence, members could now change passwords, create aliases for themselves, check their usage times, and verify their account status with complete confidentiality.
In the autumn of '98, the outbound bandwidth in Chetwynd was increased from 128k to 721k. This increase in bandwidth was accomplished with the use of new spread-spectrum radio technology to transmit the signal from Chetwynd to the Westel micro-wave backbone atop Wabi Hill. The increased bandwidth was immediately apparent, and appreciated by heavy Internet users in that town.
PRIS matured substantially at the administrative level: A manual defining the responsibilities and duties of staff and directors was authored by Gerald Clare, and adopted by the board.
The year ended with a membership of 2750
Quite honestly, we don't quite know what changes will happen at PRIS in this current year. Quite likely, the emphasis will be on providing our Peace businesses with the technological assistance required for them to become part of the emerging global e-commerce community.
Membership climbs to 3828...
We DO know that we will breath a sigh of relief when we know that we will never again hear the expression "Y2K" or "Millennium Bug". We also know that staff will play it safe, and unplug all our servers on Christmas, canoe to Hawaii and not think about anything to do with PRIS until January 3rd, 2000 Anno Domini.
Some important trends are identified however: The rest of the world is talking about Broadband Internet, where each individual member has as much bandwidth as an entire town has at this time. It becomes apparent that, again, the Peace has been categorized as a "Tier 3" community by the big players, and that we are unlikely to see this technology until 2005. But we were being a bit demanding. After all, this year party-line service had just been phased out by the phone company! How greedy could we be?
PRiS' attempt to co-locate ADSL DSLAM's on the phone company's copper phone lines is met with a cold 'No'. PRiS looks to the newly emerging wireless technology to transfer data to members at Broadband speeds. By the end of the year, PRiS has established a wireless point of presence on the grain elevator in Dawson Creek, and has 10 customers hooked up for trial service. The results looks promising and affordable, but its ubiquity is compromised by the fact that each customer must be able to locate an antenna in such a way that it could 'see' our access point.
School districts in the Peace are obliged to participate in a province-wide network proposal called PLNet. This means that schools, and some libraries, have to leave the free service that PRiS had provided to participate in this plan, at a significant increased cost to the province. Such is the process of rationalization. While it does not affect PRiS, Internet access in other rural communities takes a big hit, as schools had been anchor tenants for some community ISP's.
Things do not stand still on the dial-up front:
Fibre connectivity comes to the Peace, increasing our bandwidth out of the Peace. At the top of this page, we reported bandwidth in bits per second, and now we report bandwidth in millions of bits per second: 50 Mbps, to be exact. More than enough to meet the needs of Broadband wireless service for the general membership. The wireless access points go up in Ft St John and Dawson Creek.
The folks of Hudson's Hope face a bit of a crisis as the satellite service that the Hudson's Hope Community Network Society had been using comes to an end. The HHCNS and PRiS agree to consolidate, and Hudson's Hope joins the PRiS fold. PRiS establishes a wireless backhaul to Ft St John under bitter winter temperatures to restore and expand services. Members now have the choice between an expanded Dial-Up service or wireless broadband, but PRiS recognizes that the link they established was an interim measure that would need to be augmented in the future. Nonetheless, the establishment of a 1 megabit link of ten 2.4 Ghz radios with one wireless shot over 80Km long is a unique achievement for the time, and PRiS staff feel a great sense of accomplishment.
In order to improve access to the net for people who do not have personal accounts, PRiS donates 2 computers to each of the public libraries in Tumbler Ridge, Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson, and Hudson's Hope.
The need to be able to offer ADSL becomes acute, and on a trip to the lower mainland, PRiS makes such a strong business case to the phone company to participate in rolling out ADSL that the phone company agrees, but becomes convinced that it should roll out its own competing retail ADSL service here also. This proves to be a double-edged sword.
ADSL arrives in November. Membership reaches a zenith of 6800, another year of increase in excess of 30%. Gross receipts break the million dollar a year mark.
PRiS was originally formed to ensure that ALL residents of the Peace had access to affordable Internet services: It had never intended to become a competitor with others for 'customers'. The advent of comparable services from the Incumbent telephone carrier leads PRiS to re-examine its focus.
It becomes evident that telephone company is driven by a different agenda. It's purpose is to maximize corporate profits by offering Broadband ONLY to those areas that can be served at the lowest cost: essentially 'skimming the cream' off the market. The phenomenon becomes evident everywhere, and the expression 'Digital Divide' is born. Larger urban communities get Broadband at bargain basement prices, while smaller communities and rural residents find themselves on the wrong side of the Divide. As the easy to serve membership gets raided, PRiS finds it increasingly difficult to provide universal access.
PRiS decides that it is essential to compete in the urban ADSL market to ensure that it has adequate resources to address the needs of the underserved, but commits to concentrating on underserved regions. The solution lies in wireless technology. In this year, PRiS expands to offer wireless service in Pouce Coupe, Taylor, Tumbler Ridge and Chetwynd, regions the large corporations find lower down on their profitability charts.
Access points for rural residents and the oil patch are added at Briar Ridge, Bear Mountain, McKinnon, and Mountainview, and 300 locations are connected wirelessly. Particularly rewarding is the fact that some remote members who could not get even telephone service now have broadband access to the world.
Broadband Internet brings new management challenges: Home computers are now full-time integral parts of the Internetwork, yet are not managed by IT professionals. Kids, and unscrupulous 'Businessmen' all have the potential to abuse bandwidth, e-mail, or other computers. Member computers become increasingly at risk of abuse or compromise.
To combat such new problems, PRiS develops e-mail virus traps, SPAM filters, and bandwidth management protocols, and member support levels rise considerably.
PRiS opens a new office in Ft St John within the Computer Factory to assist in offering more local support. There are now 7 full-time staff members. Membership continues to grow strongly in the smaller communities, but raids on Dawson Creek and Ft St John membership exact their toll. We end the year with 6250 members.
PRiS reluctantly decides that it must chase prices down, and offers 'Introductory Pricing' for new ADSL members, and maintains its price advantage over all competetive offerings. As PRiS is not-for-profit, it struggles with the concept of subsidizing new members at the expense of the established membership. Such is the price of entering the 'free market'.
Meanwhile, the digital divide continues to become more entrenched outside of urban areas. Federal initiatives are designed to help address the connectivity challenges faced by rural regions. PRiS participates in a number of coalitions of BC regions that try to work together to expand broadband connectivity. It becomes evident that PRiS had been leading the way in terms of locally driven, community-based rural wireless connectivity. PRiS becomes involved in a number of workshops to share their experiences with other regions of the Province.
PRiS experiences firsthand the truth of the old business adage of "Never buy wholesale from somebody who is competing with you retail" with reference to its relationship with the incumbent communications company. It continues to be challenged in getting the provider to share PRiS's sense of urgency in dealing with upstream outages, and billing discrepancies that were at times in excess of $200,000 need to be brought to the attention of the CRTC to reach resolution. The need for long-term development of alternative networks in concert with other BC communities is reinforced.
PRiS completely redesigns its Web Site. The new site provides the membership with occasional light reading, a free, fully customizable SPAM filter, and a web based mail interface that enables members to send and receive mail from anywhere in the world.
PRiS Broadband membership reaches 1100 by the end of the year (ADSL and Wireless), but total membership slides to 5640.
Please stand by... Wait for a while... The year is young.
Questions, comments, and suggestions can be directed to the sysop@pris.ca
Last Modified:Friday, 15-Feb-2004 10:15:59 MST