Page 12
Spilyay Tyrooo, Wjrrn Springs, Oregon
November 25, 2004-
Internet: Communications Center will be open to tribal members
(Continued from page 1)
Current funding only pays
for broadband access for poten
tial subscribers who can see the
radio tower on Eagle Butte.
"We hope to extend (the cov
erage area) as funds are avail
able, either through revenue we
generate, or, more than likely,
we could go back to Tribal
Council and say, 'Gee, would
you like to fund this,'" Phillips
said. "We haven't gone to them
with a funding request yet. We
figured we would get Phase I
working, and we weren't going
to ask for more money (yet)."
With that additional funding,
similar antennas would be
placed on Eagle Butte to pro
. vide access to the Warm Springs
Industrial park, Dry Creek,
Wolf Point, and Kah-Nee-Ta, as
well as some homes on the way
to Madras.
While there is no indication
of the number of residents
planning to have their homes
hooked up to high-speed
Internet yet, the number of
homes that actually subscribe
will be watched.
' "We don't know out of this
area how many 'can afford the
service," Phillips said. "That will
help dictate how far we can
spread (the coverage) using that
percentage. Whoever does,
whatever rate it comes in, basi
cally will pay the cost of run
ning things, but if you don't
reach a certain minimal level,
obviously it's going to be tough."
This plan appears to offer
the most reliable form of
Internet access available to the
reservation, Phillips said. Cur
rently, residents subscribe to
dial-up access, 'using a modem,
which he says is "very low qual
ity," or they can use DSL
Internet that Qwest Communi
cations offers. Qwest's signal is
generated from' a Vuifdirfg on c
U.S. 26 in Warm Springs, but its
signal can only be received
within a mile of the building and
weakens as close as a half-mile
away. Or, there is satellite
Internet access that is expensive,
at $80 to $90 per month, and is
Project to make old papers available
WASHINGTON (AP) -The
government promises any
one with a computer will have
access within a few years to mil
lions of pages from old news
papers, a slice of American his
tory to be viewed now only by
visiting local libraries, newspaper
offices or the nation's capital.
The first of what's expected
to be 30 million digitized pages
from papers published from
1836 through 1922 will be avail
able in 2006.
"Anyone who's interested -teachers,
students, historians,
lawyers, politicians, even news
paper reporters - will be able to
Small Hands
Fact: Children from age two to seventeen start fires
that endanger lives, cause injuries, death and burn
millions of dollars In property.
Fact: Children under the age of three cause a
majority of these fires and lose their lives In the
process.
This does not have to happen. Parents need to teach
their children about the dangers of fire and create a
fire-safe home.
Install Smoke
AMERIND offers Home and Fire Safety Training to Children in
Indian Country.
Contact AMERIND'S Loss Prevention Team for more information:
www.amerind-corp.org 800-352-3496
rail
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Six-foot microwave receiver atop
Building.
ineffective because of the lag
time from the satellite.
"This will be the first wide
spread full high-speed access
Warm Springs will have,"
Phillips said.
Warm Springs residents who
can't spend the money for
broadband access for their own
home or business will still be
able to use it free of charge at
the proposed community com
munications center, which
Phillips said he expects to open
"sometime around June."
Phillips said the center would
act like a cross between an
Internet cafe" and copy-online
center; a "mini-Kinko's," if you
wilL
"The grant calls for 24 com
puters, probably 20, roughly,
accessible to the community,
where people can come in, sit
down, where they can get a fairly
decent computer, high-speed
go to their computer at home
or at work and at a click of a
mouse get immediate, unfiltered
access to the greatest source of
our history," said Bruce Cole,
chairman of the National En
dowment for the Humanities.
He announced the project in a
speech at the National Press
Club.
. Now, the only way to view
the old papers is to pore through
many thousands of microfilm
reels at the Library of Congress,
regional libraries and newspaper
offices.
The Library of Congress al
ready has put together a small
to Hold Lovo
Detectors ... Plan an Escape Route
Brian MorMraenSpllyay
the Tribal Administration
Internet access at no charge," he
said.
Additionally, the telecom cen
ter could provide introductory
classes on how to use the
Internet or how a parent can
monitor what their children
view online, or print photos they
might take with a digital cam
era. Another advantage, Phillips
said, is that Eagle-Tech can make
computers for the center that
can out-perform yet still be
about 20 percent less expensive
than commercially bought com
puters. Besides the low costj the ben
efit of having "homemade"
computers, Phillips said, is that
they can easily be repaired in
Warm Springs, instead of in
Madras or Bend. And that helps
create an atmosphere that is less
library and more user-friendly
than even the norm.
by computer
sample. It has digitized issues of
the U.S. military newspaper
"Stars and Stripes" during World
War I, February 1918 to June
1919.
Cole said the National Digi
tal Newspaper Program is to
further the founding fathers'
belief that knowledge of history
was a necessity for government
by the people.
"American amnesia is danger
ous," he said.
"Democracy is not self-sustaining;
it needs to be learned
and passed down from genera
tion to generation."
... Not pro
Phillips said he met with a
man who has opened telecom
munications centers like the one
in Warm Springs who said, well,
it was OK to play.
"I was telling him how it
would probably be a library.
You'd ask people to be quiet,
and, of course, you'd want to
avoid the kids with food and
stuff gumming up the keyboards
and the mice and all that," he
said. "He said they opened up
one place and had a spaghetti
feed. The upshot is, I realized
not to turn it into a room of
nerds, where nobody wants to
go because of all these rules.
"Keyboards can be cleaned.
They can be replaced, if you buy
cheap ones, and let the kids be
kids."
Two possible sites have been
selected for the telecommunica
tions center, one, the first choice,
is between the post office and
the Warm Springs Market that
is currently condemned and va
cant, and a vacant house across
the street from the first location.
Along with staffing from Eagle
Tech, the center will use volun
teer labor.
Through the Rural Utility
Services grant, Warm Springs
receives a microwave link, at 5.8
megahertz, from Quantum
Contmunications' point of pres
ence east of Madras, a 35-foot
pole with a six-foot microwave
dish pointed at the radio tower
on Eagle Butte. The signal from
Eagle Butte is then bounced off
what is called a passive receiver
("It looks like a billboard. It's
about eight-to-10 feet tall and
20-feet wide, and it's raised
about 30 feet in the air," Phillips
said.) located east of the water
tank on the hill behind the
Tenino apartments.
The passive receiver has no
power but only bounces the sig
, nal from Eagle Butte' to Vsix-r'
foot rtiiirowaveceivef atop ''
the Tribal Administration Build
ing. The signal is then distributed
via fiber optic cable to the Ad
ministration Building, the Com
munityWellness Center, Indian
La A
Li'fj-
(Mb.
i -r.
10'
Open 7 days a week, on HWY 97
in the old Outpost building, 475-9776
Open 7 a.m. til midnight, Mon-Thurs.
Weekends 7 a.m. til 2 a.m.
Health Services, Early Child
hood Education and Tribal
Court. The fiber optic cable,
forming a backbone, has already
resulted in a $2,000-a-month
savings in telephone line ex
penses to the Confederated
Tribes.
Through the wireless connec
tion, The Museum at Warm
Springs and the Retail Business
Center are connected to the sys
tem. One of the provisions of the
grant, Phillips said, is that the
high-speed Internet project be
self-funding in two years. The
telecommunications center will
be half-public, yet half-commercial,
in that it will recover the
cost of such items as computer
paper and photo-printing paper.
Another way has been through
the outsourcing of Eagle-Tech,
which was formerly simply the
information technology depart
ment of the Confederated
Tribes until the start of this year.
"We do it as a business now,"
Phillips said. He said that within
that two-year period, Eagle-Tech
must demonstrate it can provide
better service for the tribal en
tities it serves and lower its own
costs with revenue it generates.
The "ultimate goal," Phillips
said, is to pursue contract work,
particularly in the federal-contracting
area.
"We probably won't get that
serious about it until well into
next year and finish our first two
priorities," he said. "We've
started a little already. We've
probably generated around
$50,000 to $60,000 in revenue
on some small contracts we
have."
Eagle-Tech has contracts
with Indian Health Services, the
National Native American Hu
man Resource Association. This
work includes web-hosting and
other tomp'uter or 'network'
tasks. n's?'; t&itri
"It's not extremely profit
able," he said. "The opportuni
ties in federal contracting are
the ones that are mind-boggling."
ft H fix
Cold
Beverages,
Ice, Soda,
Groceries
& more
No problem
for phone,
TV reception
As infrastructure for
high-speed wireless Internet
is installed in spots around
Warm Springs, television
and radio reception will be
unfazed and cellular phone
reception won't be compro
mised. A microwave signal is be
ing transmitted into the res
ervation, to the Eagle Butte,
radio tower, off a passive
receiver in the West Hills
and to a dish on top of the
Administration Building. But
that signal is so weak, no one
will be harmed, Lloyd
Phillips, manager of Eagle
Tech Systems, said, and the
signal is on a frequency dif
ferent from televisions, ra
dios or cellular phones.
"The passive receiver
doesn't generate anything,"
he said. "It is simply bounc
ing signals that are coming
through.
"The microwave, a lot of
people are thinking, that's
what I cook with. The
power of this microwave is
not more than a 100-watt
light bulb at that distance,
so it's very low power.
"One guy in one meet
ing (asked), 'Is that going to
screw up my TV reception
because that passive
receiver's not too far from
my house.' Basically the
signal's already there. We've
been transferring it for over
a month. There's just no
passive yet. We finished the
passive a few weeks ago to
bounce it off."
The microwave signal op
erates1 at 5.8' megahertz,;
which1 radio, TV of cell " :
phones use.
"It's a band for a micro1
wave," Phillips said. "It
won't be an issue of inter
ference and no one's going
to glow in the dark."
N 1
24 NE Plum
Madras
475-7560