February 1999 Meeting Report
by Howard L. Bonar
Secretary, Alaska Computer Society

The February 1999 meeting of the Alaska Computer Society was held at Anchorage Museum of Natural History starting at 7:00 pm. Next month we will be back to meeting at Providence Hospital.

Questions and Answers

One person reported they were not able to receive Email from the IBM E-mail service. They are using Microsoft Outlook. Someone suggested they check the Slipstick Systems website at www.SlipStick.com which is home of the Outlook Guru. This site carries a lot of new information on updates, bugs, patches and fixes.

Another member reported on hearing about a case where a large National Internet Service Provider is being investigated by the Justice department for dumping all E-mail messages coming to their server that originated from shareware and freeware mail packages.

Another reported on the Happy New Year 1999 Virus that seems to be making the rounds. Every one is encouraged to get a virus protection program and keep it current. If you get something you think is a virus, you can send it to Symantec's www.Norton.com website. When connected, select [United States], then select [Anti-Virus Research Center]. You can submit the suspected virus and they will check it. This site is mirrored in Alaska at www.TuCows.com.

Main Meeting

President Gene White introduced the board members, SIG (Special Interest Group) leaders and volunteers present.

On behalf of the Alaska Computer Society, Howard Bonar presented a plaque to past president Dawn Scott for her long and distinguished service to the group. Dawn served seven years as president and one year as Vice President from 1990 to 1998. She continues her good work as Community Services Coordinator and as Program Director. Thank you so much Dawn!

Bronwyn Hillman reported on the Windows SIG which meets the first Thursday of each month at the AARP Information Center in Northway Mall. The HTML SIG is temporarily on hold until we find a qualified instructor/leader.

Jerrianne Lowther reported on the Apple Users Group.

Shelley Richardson and friend reported on the AutoCAD Users group. Note: See the Technology Events Schedule and the calendar for times, dates, and places for the SIG meetings.

Howard Bonar reported on the activity at the computer lab center in the AARP Information Center. We have received donations of some older pentiums to replace the existing 486 computers. They will provide a substantial improvement in performance and much larger hard drives. Several have CD-ROM drives installed which will make them useful for computerized training programs.

The software evaluation program now has lots of new software for review. We need some able volunteers to check them out.

The door prizes were an official GCI Iditarod jacket from GCI and some software donated by various vendors. Brett Woern won the jacket; Frank Hanson won a trial version of NT Work Station; Wayne Day got a copy of Technet; and Mike Inman got a copy of SQL Server.

The Presentation

High Speed Internet Access for Alaska.

Mr. Martin E. Cary, Vice President of Rural Services for GCI stood in for Mr. David Porte who was under the weather.

GCI is an Alaska-based company providing voice, video and data communication services to more than 125,000 residential, commercial and government customers.

GCI currently offers dial-up and high-speed cable modem Internet access for the home and business user. Other data services are also offered.

To speed up the exchange of data, GCI has established a Network Access Point (NAP) in Anchorage. Without it, all messages from one Anchorage Internet Provider to another must first go to Seattle, the next nearest NAP, then return to Anchorage. This doubles the traffic on the pipes and of course slows down the transfer of data. The GCI network is now open to connection by any Internet Service Provider for direct interchange of local data.

GCI has established dual terrestrial paths from Anchorage to Seattle which offers a high degree of reliability and of course double the bandwidth available. The new fiber optic cable link to the lower 48 states was turned up about two weeks ago. A Ping test which measures the time it takes for a message to get from Anchorage to Seattle is averaging about 50 milli-seconds.

GCI has established Points of Presence (POP) in Kodiak and Sitka and over the next 9 months expects to be in 14 cities. They have established new high capacity circuits between Anchorage and Fairbanks and Anchorage and Juneau.

GCI's goal is to have their service available 95% of the time, that is no more than 5% busy signals. In addition, their policy is that their cable plants will be limited to less than 85% full capacity. If it gets over that mark, they intend to add additional circuits. They have two network operating centers where they monitor alarms and take action whenever the standard operating capacities are exceeded.

An efficient cable plant is the key to fast service. Old style cable systems had a head end where the amplifiers and cable branches were located. Signal flow was one way only. The new system has two-way amplifiers with signals flowing in both directions. If the cable is cut, the signals will automatically reverse direction and get to the destination by going around the loop the other way.

GCI now has 200 miles of single node fiber optic cable installed in Anchorage in rings with tap-off nodes to provide access wherever needed In Anchorage, GCI is offering 750 megahertz of bandwidth. They can carry 65 analog TV channels and 100 channels of digital TV and music in addition to the Internet traffic.

In the home, the cable modem is connected to the outside world via the cable. The TV and the computer can both be connected at the same time. Second units can be installed by adding a "T" connection. In the near future, a regular telephone connection will also be available over the cable. Recognize that these services do not have back-up power and will go dead if the electricity goes out. Homes should retain at least one regular telephone line since they are powered by central office batteries and still operate for quite awhile if the power is out.

At this time there are no accepted standards for cable modems and the industry is changing very rapidly. To avoid future customer relations problems, GCI has decided to lease the modems rather than sell them outright. At a later date, if they need to be replaced, it will be at no loss to the customer. For those that have already bought modems, they expect to have some sort of a buy-back program in place if and when it is necessary to change out the present units.

GCI is exploring the possibility of offering centralized mail service and centralized back-up. Firms could contract for space where they can back-up their data files over the cable system to the central file server.

For more information, check their web site at www.GCI.com.