Executive Director's Report November, 1999 =========================== December 18, 1999 By Christopher L. Cope (execdir@freenet.carleton.ca) Contents: 1. Administration & Funding 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives 3. System Administration 1. Administration & Funding =========================== a) Donation Data - New Registrations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There was an improvement in new registrations this month at 260 new members, but this figure is well below (-35%) our budgeted number. The average donation was slightly higher than our forecast but only 42% on the new members donated, resulting in a contribution of $ 2,305 or 42% under budget. No. No. % Of Avg. Regist New Budget Regist Memb $ Budget Regist Donat'n Memb. (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donat'n All New ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'98 3,488 7,224 -52% 1,499 43.0% $35,668 $46,225 -23% $23.79 $10.23 Avg'98 291 602 -52% 125 43.0% $ 2,972 $ 3,852 -23% $23.79 $10.23 Jan. 205 300 -32% 133 64.9% $ 3,297 $ 3,000 -10% $24.79 $16.08 Feb 230 300 -23% 127 55.2% $ 2,704 $ 3,000 -10% $23.62 $13.04 Mar. 213* 300 -29% 114 53.5% $ 2,875 $ 3,000 -4% $26.32 $14.08 Apr. 203 300 -32% 95 46.8% $ 2,437 $ 3,000 -19% $31.58 $14.78 May 141 300 -53% 91 64.5% $ 2,002 $ 3,000 -33% $32.97 $21.28 Jun. 151 300 -50% 67 44.4% $ 1,391 $ 3,000 -54% $44.78 $19.87 Jul. 289 400 -28% 111 38.4% $ 2,518 $ 4,000 -37% $36.04 $13.84 Aug. 223 400 -44% 97 43.5% $ 2,474 $ 4,000 -38% $41.24 $17.94 Sep. 291 400 -27% 95 32.6% $ 2,309 $ 4,000 -42% $42.11 $13.75 Oct. 201 400 -50% 103 51.2% $ 2,047 $ 4,000 -49% $38.83 $19.09 Nov. 260 400 -35% 100 38.5% $ 2,305 $ 4,000 -42% $40.00 $15.38 Dec. 400 $ 4,000 ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'99 2,407 3,800 -37% 1,133 47.1% $26,359 $38,000 -31% $23.26 $10.95 Avg'99 219 345 -37% 103 47.1% $ 2,396 $ 3,455 -29% $23.26 $10.95 b) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The number of renewals this month is encouraging at 268 or just 15% under budget. In addition, we processed even more donations than renewals (largely unarchivals) resulting in a financial contribution of $7,886 or 23% more than anticipated in the Budget. In addition to a high percentage of donors, the average donation was strong at $27.01. We believe this positive result stems largely from the change in the renewal letter to suggest a $48 donation. No. % Of Avg. Renwl No. Budget Renwl Renwl $ Budget Renwl Donate Renwl (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donatn All Ren ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'98 9,697 10,012 -3% 6,465 66.7% $156,819 $228,388 -31% $24.26 $16.17 AVG'98 808 834 -3% 539 66.7% $ 13,068 $ 19,032 -31% $24.26 $16.17 Jan. 906 1,020 3% 880 97.1% $ 20,844 $ 20,800 0% $23.69 $23.01 Feb. 826 1,279 -35% 781 94.6% $ 23,316 $ 26,100 -11% $29.85 $28.23 Mar. 1,151 1,162 -1% 818 71.1% $ 23,422 $ 23,700 -1% $28.63 $20.35 Apr. 717 1,235 -42% 576 80.3% $ 15,586 $ 25,200 -38% $27.06 $21.74 May 663 1,176 -44% 572 86.3% $ 15,522 $ 24,000 -35% $27.14 $23.41 Jun. 410 873 -53% 400 97.6% $ 10,051 $ 17,800 -44% $25.13 $24.51 Jul. 348 510 -32% 268 77.0% $ 7,350 $ 10,400 -29% $27.43 $21.12 Aug. 268 358 -25% 224 83.6% $ 4,991 $ 7,300 -32% $22.28 $18.62 Sep. 305 270 13% 197 64.6% $ 4,510 $ 5,500 -18% $22.89 $14.79 Oct. 320 309 4% 207 64.7% $ 4,843 $ 6,300 -23% $23.40 $15.13 Nov. 268 314 -15% 292 109% $ 7,886 $ 6,400 23% $27.01 $29.43 Dec. 387 $ 7,900 ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'98 6,182 8,505 -27% 5,215 84% $138,321 $173,500 -20% $26.52 $22.37 AVG'98 562 773 -27% 474 84% $ 12,575 $ 15,773 -20% $26.52 $22.37 c) Unassigned Donations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Donations not associated with registration or renewals: Period Donors Donation Average ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ 1998 Total 1,103 $34,033 $30.85 1999 Jan. 41 $ 1,268 $30.93 Feb. 33 $ 1,057 $32.03 Mar. 07 $ 186 $26.57 Apr. 19 $ 431 $22.68 May. 2 $ 49 $24.50 Jun. 11 $ 389 $35.35 July. 4 $ 186 $35.36 Aug. 4 $ 129 $32.25 Sep. 0 $ 0 Oct. 0 $ 0 Nov. 0 $ 0 ~~~ ~~~~~~~ 121 $ 3,695 $30.54 d) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our current membership stands at 10,600, a decline of 0.6% since last month. Both renewals and new registrations were under Budget this month. The large number of unarchivals (268) however, resulted in a figure which is only slightly lower than last month. |Member | Current |To line| Actual |Ratio |Number Forecast Number Forecast Number Number # of % inc. | |Of New No. of Members No. of Members Members Members -dec. |Lns :1 |Members New Memb Renewed Renewed Un-arch Archvd ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ |~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ Jan. 16,691 -1.5% |213 76| 205 300 906 1,020 0 0 Feb. 13,461 4.7% |213 80| 230 300 826 1,279 1 4,739 Mar. 14,517 7.8% |213 80| 213 300 1,151 1,162 4 252 Apr. 14,115 -2.8% |213 67| 203 300 717 1,235 2 607 May 13,299 -5.8% |213 62| 141 300 663 1,176 7 964 Jun. 13,071 -1.7% |213 61| 151 300 410 873 4 887 Jul. 12,497 -4-4% |213 59| 289 400 348 510 0 863 Aug. 12,438 -0.5 |213 58| 223 400 268 358 0 282 Sep. 11,072 -10.7% |213 52| 291 400 305 270 31 688 Oct. 10,669* -4.0% |213 50| 201 400 320 309 8 652 *calculated, based on changes to last month's figure. e) Sponsorship, Homepage Data and Information Providers: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The number of IPs dropped slightly to 243, but the number of IPs with webpages continues to climb and is now at 168. The number of personal home pages increased this month to 852 or 8% of our members. Org. Org. | Line Line | New Total Free -Dec. | Home of Accts Accts | Spons Spons | IPs IPs Pages % | Page Memb ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~ Jan. 1 41| 0 8 | 1 300 92 7.0% |1,051 9.9% Feb. 5 46| 0 8 | 5 305 94 2.2% |1,094 8.1% Mar. 2 48| 0 8 | -5 300 99 5.3% |1,078 7.4% Apr. 4 52| 0 8 | -2 298 101 2.0% |1,051 7.4% May 2 54| 0 8 | -6 292 99 -2.0% |1,007 7.6% June 2 56| 0 8 | 1 293 105 6.1% | 974 7.5% July 0 56| 0 8 | 1 294 105 0% | 916 7.3% Aug. 1 57| 0 8 | -18 276 103 -1.9% | 867 7.0% Sep. 3 60| 0 8 | -16 260 156 51.5% | 838 7.5% Oct. 3 63| 0 8 | -11 249 133*-14.7% | 839 7.9% Nov. 0 63| 0 8 | -6 243 168 26.3% | 852 8.0% f) Modem Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (i) Weekly Sessions: The software that calculates the number of sessions and unique users has not been working since the operating system upgrade. Accordingly, the Sysadmin has manually extracted the numbers from the logs reflected in the table below. Accordingly, some of the change showing may have surfaced as a result of the alternate method of extracting data. The number of PPP sessions seems to have risen markedly for a total of 44,769 sessions, continuing to represent about 60% of the total. Text sessions rose as well, to 31,044 and held the line at about 40% of the number of sessions. PPP Users PPP Users Text Users Total Increase Main Pool Mitel Pool Total PPP (Main Pool) Sessions Decrease ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ Jan 7,656 14% 52,953 Feb 7,068 17% 42,381 -20% Mar 29,635 44% 8,125 12% 37,769 55% 30,320 45% 68,080 61% Apr 25,350 38% 8,885 13% 34,235 51% 33,017 49% 67,252 -1% May 30,565 42% 8,444 12% 39,009 54% 33,757 46% 72,766 8% Jun 35,280 47% 7,455 10% 42,735 57% 32,705 43% 75,440 4% Jul 37,590 50% 5,833 8% 43,423 58% 31,084 42% 74,507 -1% Aug 35,305 51% 4,738 7% 40,043 57% 29,853 43% 69,896 -6% Sep 35,410 53% 4,842 7% 40,252 60% 26,458 40% 66,710 -5% Oct 29,410 50% 7,175 12% 36,585 62% 22,742 38% 59,327 -11% Nov 37,450 49% 7,319 10$ 44,769 59% 31,044 41% 75,813 28% (ii) Unique users in a one week period: We have recorded a large jump in the number of unique users using the PPP service, primarily on the main modem pool. The number of members using the Extended Access modems held steady at 1026. PPP users represent 64% of the total, with text users representing 36%. PPP Users PPP Users Text Users Total Increase Main Pool Mitel Pool Total PPP (Main Pool) Sessions Decrease ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ Jan 1,178 16% 7,187 Feb 1,127 17% 6,508 -9% Mar 2,510 30% 1,095 13% 3,605 43% 4,711 57% 8,316 28% Apr 2,419 31% 1,163 15% 3,582 46% 4,243 54% 7,825 -6% May 2,599 33% 1,168 15% 3,767 48% 4,130 52% 7,897 1% Jun 2,600 35% 1,103 15% 3,703 49% 3,789 51% 7,492 -5% Jul 3,522 49% 986 14% 4,508 63% 2,676 37% 7,184 -4% Aug 2,765 39% 933 13% 3,698 53% 3,323 47% 7,021 -2% Sep 2,787 40% 938 14% 3,725 54% 3,182 46% 6,907 -2% Oct 3,090 42% 1,026 14% 4,116 56% 3,173 44% 7,289 6% Nov 7,164 56% 1,026 8% 8,190 64% 4,523 36% 12,713 74% f) Modem Availability ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Because of a malfunctioning modem on the machine used to test modems, we were unable to obtain modem test results this month. 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Projects ~~~~~~~~ (i) Extended Access II - RMOC RMOC, as part of their Y2K readiness planning, continues to postpone this project as they wish to operate under a "clean software" environment from now until early next year. The project will be reactivated in March, 2000. (ii) Industry Canada - Urban CAP: Industry Canada has invited NCF to participate in the development of a steering committee, to be formed to discuss common needs, central services (such as Webmail, news etc.) in the Ottawa region. Several initiatives are already in the discussion, or development stages. It is hoped that the several levels of CAP and varied projects will come together to create a community CAP network in Ottawa to share resources and know-how. The Anti Poverty Project (T.A.P.P.) will create some 35 CAP sites in non-profit and low rental housing areas. The Coalition of Community Health and Service Centres are planning a 13-site project that will be partly funded by HRDC through the Community Learning Networks (CLN) program and partly through CAP funding. Industry Canada is negotiation directly with Libraries and schools in the region and is hopeful that they will create Industry Canada is hopeful that some 179 CAP sites will be created in the Ottawa region. Of these, they target about 60 as community-driven initiatives with the remaining sites to be located in Federal buildings, libraries and schools. (iii) Industry Canada - VolNet: The delivery phase of the VolNet program continues. The following table illustrates progress to date: Number of applications approved to date: 244 Number of applications on hold: 10 Target number of organizations 250 Number of new computers delivered: 64 Number of new computer orders outstanding: 60 Number of recycled computers delivered 1 Number of recycled computers outstanding 8 Number of organizations visited: 68 On January 17, 1999, we will begin the classroom-training segment of the VolNet service delivery. Classes will consist of two 4-hour segments on consecutive weeks, or optionally, a single full day session on a Saturday. Segment one will broadly cover Internet usage, including surfing, searching, bookmarks, downloading etc. Segment two will deal with communications on the Internet and will include instruction on email (sending, receiving attachments etc), news, web-boards, and chat etc. A third "Advanced Skills" segment will follow, dealing with Web page development, ftp, Internet marketing etc. (iv) HRDC (Office of Learning Technology) Webmail We continue to await approval of the development phase of our Webmail project. HRDC has indicated that the technical sections of our proposal are excellent, but has asked us to expand on the social needs section of our report, stressing impact on job seekers, children etc. (vi) HRDC (Office of Learning Technology): On November 18, 1999 HRDC staff) sent a brief up to the Minister, recommending that our project receive full funding ($260,600). We are informed that the ministerial approval process may take up to two months, but expect to receive final approval early in January 2000. b) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gordon Pearson's column in the November edition of Monitor magazine examines the current state of support for the community networking movement, particularly, President Clinton's recent $65 million program to assist CTCs (Community Technology Centres). Pearson comments on the irony of this news in light of the recent death of the first ever freenet in Cleveland. Mr. Pearson's article can be read at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ip/freenet/announce/monitor/1999-11 or in text-mode, type "go freebytes" Fiona Hammond (ed491) and a team of helpers organized a "FUNdraiser" which was held Sunday, December 5th at Perfect Strangers. There are donations and payments arising from the silent auction, but Fiona says the event was a success and a donation to FreeNet will ensue. Participants agree that a good time was had by all. c) NCF Demographics ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In order to assist the Board in its understanding of the needs and makeup of our present membership, I have been analyzing data contained in NCF's master membership database. The results obtained can be seen graphically at http://www.ncf.ca/execdir/Demographics/. I have repeated the data in table form below. (1) Age of NCF members The Date of Birth was examined for all members currently active. Some 2,000 registrations were ignored, as the date on file was incorrectly entered (typically a 2-digit year rather than 4-digit), The remaining 9,410 members were sorted by category. Clearly, the composition of our membership is strongly made up of young adults, with roughly 60% of our members between twenty and 49 years of age, Age of NCF Members ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ age number percent ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ PRE-TEENS: <13 213 2.3% TEENS 13-19 1,083 11.5% Twenty to twenty-nine 20-29 1,738 18.5% Thirty to thirty-nine 30-39 2,034 21.6% Forty to forty-nine 40-49 1,826 19.4% Fifty to fifty-nine 50-59 1,345 14.3% Sixty to sixty-nine 60-69 809 8.6% Seventy and up 70+ 362 3.8% ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ TOTAL ALL AGES 9,410 100.0% (2) Percentage Split between Males and Females The NCF database does not include a "gender" field. In order to understand more about the gender of our members, their first names were examined. 861 different male first names, representing 5,553 members were clearly recognizable. Similarly, 866 female first names, representing some 3,202 members were clearly identified as female. 1,102 names, representing 1,540 members were categorized as "unspecified", where the name was applicable to both sexes, consisted only of initials, or was unfamiliar to me. The results below give some indication however, about the make-up of our membership. While we are still predominated by males at about 63%, this bias appears to be disappearing. In the fall of 1994, Andrew Patrick studied NCF member demographics as part of an Industry Canada study. At that time, 1,052 users answered a question about their gender and 81.8% of these respondents were male (18.2% female). Mr. Patrick's study can be found at http://debra.dgbt.doc.ca/services-research/ or in text mode, "go stats" and select item 7. " Surveys on NCF". Gender of NCF Members ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ % of % of total known ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Males in sample 5,553 53.9% 63.4% Females in sample 3,202 31.1% 36.6% Unspecified or unknown 1,540 15.0% ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ 10,295 100.0% 100.0% d) Message from MoM A message will be sent to all members encouraging them to give a gift membership in FreeNet to family members or friends. The message says in part: "Giving someone the gift of membership in National Capital FreeNet is twice blessed - it will be much appreciated by the recipient, and the new members will be much valued and appreciated by FreeNet!" e) Auction ~~~~~~~ The NCF Auction, now planned as a year-round feature, was launched on November 17, 1999. The auction is now in a web format and some items can be listed complete with illustrations. Each individual auction item has its own unique closing date, and we set many items to close in time for Christmas. The auction which is "Lynx-friendly" for our text users, can be accessed at http://auction.ncf.ca/ or in text mode by typing "go auction". All items sold are donated to NCF (or surplus equipment) and all proceeds go to NCF. All NCF members have been automatically registered to bid on auction items, but anyone with a valid email address (for auction password retrieval) will can bid. We have had several unusual items up for bids, including a cord of firewood, hand-made greeting cards and even a copy of the brand new dinner party game "Hidden Agenda" which was donated by its creator, a former NCF member. Proceeds have only just begun to come in, but as of Wednesday, December 15th, we had received 7 payments totaling $304. f) Top Five Priorities - ED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) System reliability - Replace terminal server at Mitel - Continue to monitor and modify modem/annex arrangement at Carleton (2) Projects - Webmail - Urban CAP - VolNet - Thin Client (3) Flyer Program - expand distribution (4) Auction - find ways on encouraging donated items (5) Y2K Issues - Monitor and facilitate progress. 3. System Administration ======================== a) Reliability Concerns ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Modem statistics suggest that the Carleton modem pool offers less than desirable quality of service. Replacement modems are often as weary as the tired modems they retire. Terminal servers often are unable to keep up with the load during peak hours. Current modem maintenance and resetting techniques enable us to achieve acceptable levels of service, but it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain base levels of service. Our principal technical task will be to source and install more capable terminal servers and fresher modems. These are quite simply required and a search is underway for equipment that can be donated and/or purchased. Few options are available however, as we need to install equipment, which is compatible with our analog Bell lines (not the newer digital technology). . Newbridge Networks sell a product called "MainStreetXpress 36100 ACCESS CONCENTRATOR" which can be configured for analog connections and Newbridge has a history of providing timely assistance to NCF. Discussions are underway with Newbridge to determine both suitability and affordability of this solution. 3com (formerly US Robotics) also manufacture a remote access concentrator, which we are exploring as another alternative http://www.3com.com/solutions/svprovider/products/rac/index.html. 3com also produce a line of smaller units called "SuperStack II Remote Access System 1500" (RAS 1500). These are 24 port access servers and we would need several (8) to accommodate all of our lines. Again, there is a history of corporate assistance with an earlier donation of US Robotics modems from this company through their reseller Keating Technologies. Keating has indicated a willingness to work with us to develop a solution. We have been told that we will be given a further donation of USR 33.6 modems from Mitel. The same series of equipment changes that Mitel is making to free up digital lines for NCF use will also eliminate at least one existing analog dial-up pool which Mitel currently provides for its employees. A new Xyplex terminal server, donated earlier by Newbridge, has now been installed in the equipment rack. It will be necessary to modify our network configuration during a downtime to connect this server to the network. Newbridge has also provided boot-mirror software for the server and G.S. Networks have serial DB25 to RJ45 adapters available, which will allow us to use standard network cables to connect to our modems. We expect to put the server into use early in January and will connect it to some of the modems currently overtaxing annex3. Mitel has run into scheduling delays with their implementation of the necessary network upgrades which will support our new Cisco AS5200 terminal server. The plan now is to provide T1 digital telephone service to our server. We are hopeful, that the server can be installed early in January. b) News server upgrade ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The NCF news services have been migrated to the new UltraSPARC server donated by Rebel.Com. Additionally we now enjoy a much-updated version of the news server software. This is a major improvement and we should enjoy news system reliability competitive (likely superior to) with local commercial ISPs. Thanks to efforts by Paul Tomblin (ab401) who did the preparation, configuration, and testing of our new news-server software, and also thanks to John Stewart (aa104) for overseeing the lengthy upgrade and copying-over process. An added benefit of the upgraded news server software, is that it requires significantly less babysitting by our long-suffering News-admin, Paul Tomblin, and he has graciously agreed to continue on in this role. Hooray Paul, and thank you! c) Y2K ~~~ The former news machine has been refitted to assume the duties of a client machine. This machine (now known as Freenet10) is a very robust server and is judged capable of assuming the entire FreePort client load as we migrate FreePort to a Solaris 2.7 environment. Further bug-fixes are being installed, but as this migration proceeds, we will retire all current SunOS client machines, freeing up hardware. Most importantly, this process is the last step in our Y2K compliance program, and will eliminate the need for a SunOS platform on our network, thus completing the long-term goal of standardizing on Solaris. d) Netscape Enterprise Web Server ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are tremendous advantages to migrating the existing webserver to the UltraSPARC server. This upgrade however has been postponed until the Y2K process and changeover is complete. The Sysadmin team has successfully integrated the necessary technologies required for updating our web environment to include a dynamic scripting environment (PHP: http://www.php.net/) supported by a capable SQL server (MySQL: http://www.mysql.com/). This enables us to create and support dynamic HTML offerings, particularly useful for our Webteam. e) Migrate POP ~~~~~~~~~~~ As usage of our POP mail services increase, the POP server on f7 needs to be moved to a more robust machine. Rather than integrate POP services with the existing mail or web servers, it is judged more efficient (and more reliable) to merely initiate a linear upgrade from the present Sparc2 machine, to a more robust Sparc5, which will be freed up by the movement of FreePort services. f) Sysadmin Priorities ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Complete Solaris migration plan, retire SunOS. (2) Migrate webserver to UltraSPARC server. (3) Install AS5200 NAS at Mitel and configure (4) Configure and enable additional NAS at Carleton (5) Migrate POP services to a mightier machine. -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524