CamBay’s Nunavut Arctic College gets a communications boost

Faster internet, lower phone bills: these are some of the benefits that students and staff at Nunavut Arctic College’s campus in Cambridge Bay can expect to see next month. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Soon students and staff at Nunavut Arctic College will be see their online work move much more quickly — and if they need to, they can consult via videoconference with their peers at other campuses in Nunavut.

These improvements will flow from more than $5 million of territorial and federal money, which Greg Rickford, parliamentary secretary to the minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, highlighted during his March 15 visit to Nunavut Arctic College’s Cambridge Bay campus.

The college received $2.2 million through the federal “Knowledge Infrastructure Program,” launched in 2009 to help respond to the global economic recession under Canada’s Economic Action Plan, Rickford said.

By next month, students and staff at the Cambridge Bay campus will find also their internet, email and other online systems work more quickly.

In Cambridge Bay cabling and fibre optic cables have been installed in all buildings, along with a Telesat dish and related equipment, which are needed to access the Canadian Space Agency Ka-band network.

The Canadian Space Agency Ka-band network.will provide new bandwidth for the NAC to use for educational purposes, such as videoconferencing.

And NAC’s telephone system will be improved. Callers will be able to talk to each other Voice over Internet Protocol, which allows voice and data to go through the internet, instead of through normal telephone lines

The network will also help researchers who need lots of bandwidth to transfer or receive data.

The new network will be operational in Cambridge Bay in the beginning of April, the NAC says in a backgrounder on the project.

“Our government is investing in research and training facilities at campuses across the country to create jobs, help our economy recover quickly and improve the quality of life of Canadians,” Rickford said in a March 15 news release.

“This investment is promoting local employment now and will provide the research infrastructure Cambridge Bay and Nunavut need for years to come.”

The Government of Nunavut has matched the federal money with $2.76 million.