Executive Director's Report March, 2000 =========================== April 13, 2000 By Christopher L. Cope (execdir@freenet.carleton.ca) Contents: 1. Status Report 2. Administration & Funding 3. Member Services and Future Initiatives 4. System Administration 1. Status Report ================ a) Five Top Key Indicators ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ February March % | March % 2000 2000 Inc/Dec | 1999 Inc/Dec ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ | ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ 1. Number of members: 9,992 9,924 -0.7% | 14,517 -46.3% 2. Donation Revenue: $21,090 $24,968 -18.4% | $26,297 -%5.3% 3. Percentage donating: 53.6% 92.0% 71.8% | 68.3% 25.8% 4. Average Donation: $36.11 $30.45 -15.7% | $28.22 7.3% 5. Average Modem Failure: 27.9% 37.9% 35.8% | 2. Administration & Funding =========================== a) Donation Data - New Registrations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ March was a good month for new member registrations with some 153 new members joining (exceeding the budget by 56%). Of these, 60.1% donated, which is somewhat below the 85% anticipated. The average donation offered by new registrants was $31.21, resulting in our receiving $2,871 from new members, exceeding our projection by 15%. (See Appendix "A") b) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Renewals were strong in March as well, with some 738 members renewing their accounts (exceeding Budget by 14%). Both the percentage of donors and the level of donation exceeded our projections with 90% donating an average donation of $33.13. The resulting revenue from renewals was $22,097 compared to our Budget of $16,500 a 34% positive variance. (See Appendix "B") c) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The decline in membership continues although considerably slower this month and last. Currently our membership stands at 9,924 a loss of 68 in the month or 0.7% (See Appendix "C") d) Sponsorship, Homepage Data and Information Providers: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We enrolled 3 new organisational accounts this month with the Dalhousie Coop, the Russell Association for Performing Arts, and the Association of Bahai Studies joining. The Taoist Tai Chai Society of Ottawa, the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, the Canadian Federation of University Women of Ottawa, Stride Wheelchairs, and the Ottawa South Community Association renewed their organisational accounts, bringing our total to 73. (See Appendix "D") e) Modem Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (i) Weekly Sessions: The number of weekly sessions returned to more typical levels this month at 67,167, suggesting that the February figure represented an anomaly, or perhaps a reporting error. The percentage of PPP users continues to increase, with graphics users now representing 67% of all sessions. (See Appendix "E") (ii) Unique users in a one week period: The number of unique users dropped slightly this month to 6.455. Most of this decline consisted of PPP users, with a reduction of 235 (-6.1%) vs. a text users decline of 67 (-2.6%). (See Appendix "F") f) Modem Availability ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Because of a hardware malfunction, it was necessary to change modems on the computer running our modem test software, which may impact on comparability of month-over-month results. The software was operated twice for a total of 5,048 attempts. The Extended Access pool (271-9768) continues to give the most unreliable performance, with a overall error percentage of 68.3%. The main modem pool (520-1135) was the most available with an overall failure rate of 12.9%. Interestingly, during the two study periods, not a single busy signal was recorded. The High-Speed pool suffered from both technical performance and busy signals with an overall failure rate of 32.3%. Overall, modem performance tested poorer this month with an average failure rate of 37.9% compared to last month's 27.9%. Most of this change was attributable to the High-Speed pool, moving from just 2.0% failure last month to 32.3% this month. (See Appendices "G" and "H") 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Projects ~~~~~~~~ (i) Extended Access II - RMOC: This project remains temporarily delayed, pending hardware acquisition. (ii) Industry Canada - Urban CAP: NCF's contract to formulate a strategy and initiate a steering committee is now essentially complete, with our final report delivered to Industry Canada on April 12, 2000. Because the process is a competitive process, the exact number of sites can not yet be determined, but it now appears that Ottawa's Urban CAP community will consist of approximately 220 sites throughout the region. Included in this mix are existing rural site in communities which will become part of the new megacity, as well as proposed rural sites and proposed and planned sites in those municipalities currently defined by Industry Canada as Urban. (See also Appendix "I") A new city-wide organisation a "Network of Networks" is forming, comprised of those organizations in the region who have applied (or will apply) for CAP site funding, or who will provide services to the CAP community in Ottawa. Currently, the group includes The Region of Ottawa Carleton,, The City of Ottawa, A group if rural municipalities (will be included next year in the Ottawa megacity), The Anti Poverty Project (TAPP), A group of francophone CAP sites, both urban and rural libraries, Schools and the National Capital FreeNet, and the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI). OCRI has agreed to be the convening body and will provide interim management and administrative services. NCF is welcomed into this organisation because of our long-standing activity with the CAP program in Ottawa, and our history of helping people access technology. Perhaps of greater importance, these CAP organizations see a natural synergy with NCF as a provider of services to CAP users who will become NCF members and who will use services such as email, home dial-up, Thin Client etc., otherwise unavailable to this group. (iii) Industry Canada - VolNet: Our contract to provide Industry Canada's Volnet program in partnership with The Volunteer Centre of Ottawa Carleton is nearing completion as we finalise the last few training sessions and complete the Industry Canada reporting function. Through this project, we have provided Internet services to 244 volunteer organizations in the community. (See also Appendix "I") (iv) HRDC (Office of Learning Technology): Thin Client The start date of this project has been amended to begin on April 1, 2000. We have submitted a quarterly cash-flow to HRDC and await our first advance funding instalment. HRDC officials have indicated that their administration is still held up because of internal audit changes and that we might anticipate receiving this payment in May. (v) HRDC (Office of Learning Technology): Web-mail HRDC officials report that all new projects (such as ours) continue to be delayed, as the department reviews existing files and establishes new routines and procedures. The best estimate of when this project might be approved is early May. b) Carleton University Bandwidth Costs ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Carleton University has been advised by their backbone Internet supplier that an increase of approximately 25% can be expected as of the May contract renewal. Accordingly, Carleton has informed us that our annual fee of $12,000 will have to go up to $15,000, or $1,250 a month assuming our usage will stay the same. c) New Access Servers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our purchase order for the three new RAS1500 access servers was received by Keating Technologies Inc., reseller for 3Com Canada Inc. on March 20, 2000. Unfortunately, the promised "adequate supply" which we had been told about had already been eliminated by a flurry of last minute Government purchasing coinciding with their March 31st year-end. 3Com have indicated that re-supply will be rapid and that we could expect our servers the third or final week in April. d) Flyer Blitz ~~~~~~~~~~~ Fiona Hammond [ed491] and her team continue with plans for a flyer distribution mid-May. Ottawa Public Library has requested on two separate occasions, and received additional copies of flyers and brochure racks as they complete the distribution throughout the city. e) AGM ~~~ The 2000 Annual General Meeting closed April 11, 2000 at 5:00 PM. The voting software created for us by Mark Mielke [al278] worked well from an operations perspective. 256 votes were cast representing 2.6% of the membership. All motions were passed and the following table illustrates the results of the election for the Board of Directors: Votes Candidate Name User ID Rcvd ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ Graeme Beckett aw958 199 ELECTED 3 year term Mark Mielke al278 186 ELECTED 3 year term Michael Mason an956 180 ELECTED 3 year term Seline Herz-Fischler as370 168 ELECTED 3 year term David Millman aa342 164 ELECTED 2 year term Sandy Campbell dt820 141 ELECTED 1 year term Elisse Meshake bn515 94 f) Top Five Priorities - ED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Install new modems/access severs at Carleton - optimise other servers (2) Test and troubleshoot new Cisco AS5200 Access Server at Mitel (3) Flyer blitz (4) Continued focus on performance issues. (5) Projects - Webmail - Urban CAP - VolNet wrap-up - Thin Client 3. System Administration ======================== a) Reliability Concerns ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The current plan to resolve and improve many of our modem reliability issues is twofold. First, we have already taken steps to invest in a more modern access server solution by purchasing new equipment for our main modem pool and secondly, the completion of installation, configuration and trouble shooting of a new (used equipment) access server at Mitel. Negotiations with 3COM Canada Inc. and Keating Technologies Inc. have resulted in our recent order of three "loaded" 3COM RAS 1500 units. Each unit provides capacity for 24 analog ports with integrated v.34 33.6 kbps modems. This new equipment will allow us to update 72 ports in our existing modem pool. The new modems, coupled with 30 of our existing 28.8 modems will produce a high-speed modem pool comprised of 102 ports, or approximately 60% of our lines. We expect to have these units in our hands by the third or fourth week of April. The shipping delay is due to the unprecedented demand at the end of the government fiscal year, as various government entities expend budget surplus. b) Y2K ~~~ Issues related to the Solaris migration, initiated as a result of Y2K, continue to be addressed. Sysadmin attention however, is no longer monopolized by this one category of system stability. c) AGM2000 ~~~~~~~ The AGM2000 software ran flawlessly throughout the voting period and has been shutdown until next year. Thanks go to Mark Mielke (al278) for designing the voting system. d) Community Portal ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dan Green (bd304) continues development of a portal system. The software will be designed in Perl5 and will be modular, initially supporting a CGI interface. e) Mitel ~~~~~ The system administrator has been working with a Telecommunications Consultant from Network Planning at Mitel. Significant progress has been made and important stability problems have been resolved. The server is now configured to accept calls (test basis only so far). The next step is to build and test a radius authentication system. We may expect the cut-over to the new system to occur within a day or so of this report. f) Migrate POP ~~~~~~~~~~~ Changes to the Solaris servers will be delayed until various connection issues are resolved, including Mitel and Carleton modem upgrades. The current POP server is a Sparc2 running very basic, but sufficiently robust "QPOP" server software. Freenet3, which has been temporarily removed from service, will be reinstated on the network, and used to replace the weaker Sparc2 system. A Solaris 7 system has been configured on freenet7 and the machine will be installed as a drop-in replacement, running the same QPOP software. This should resolve any lingering performance issues on the POP server. g) Xyplex Access Server ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We expect to secure a cabling solution shortly, to permit the use of our Xyplex terminal server, donated earlier by Newbridge Networks. RJ45 to serial cables will need to be custom made. h) Sysadmin Priorities ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Resolve issues with Cisco AS5200 at Mitel (2) Install new RAS 1500 Remote Access Servers; Configure and enable additional NAS (Xyplex)at Carleton (3) Migrate POP server to SS10 and Netscape Messenging (4) Migrate webserver to UltraSPARC server. (5) Complete Solaris migration plan, retire SunOS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix A Registration Donations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No. No. % Of Avg. Avg. New Budget Regist Memb $ Budget Regist Donat'n Memb. (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donat'n All New ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'99 2,521 4,200 -40% 1,198 47.5% $28,153 $42,000 -33% $23.50 $11.17 Avg'99 210 350 -40% 100 47.5% $ 2,346 $ 3,500 -33% $23.50 $11.17 2000 Jan. 162 98 65% 73 45.1% $ 1,743 $ 2,500 -30% $23.88 $10.76 Feb. 191 98 95% 64 33.5% $ 2,021 $ 2,500 -19% $31.58 $10.58 Mar. 153 98 56% 92 60.1% $ 2,871 $ 2,500 15% $31.21 $18.78 Apr. 98 $ 2,500 May. 98 $ 2,500 Jun. 98 $ 2,500 Jul. 98 $ 2,500 Aug. 98 $ 2,500 Sep. 98 $ 2,500 Oct. 98 $ 2,500 Nov. 98 $ 2,500 Dec. 98 $ 2,500 ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'00 506 294 72% 229 45.3% $ 6,635 $7,500 -12% $28.97 $13.11 Avg'00 169 98 72% 76 45.3% $ 2,212 $2,500 -12% $28.97 $13.11 Appendix B Renewal Donations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No. % Of Avg. Renwl No. Budget Renwl Renwl $ Budget Renwl Donate Renwl (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donatn All Ren ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'99 6,587 8,892 -26% 5,554 84% $149,521 $181,400 -18% $26.92 $22.70 AVG'99 549 741 -26% 463 84% $ 12,460 $ 15,117 -18% $26.92 $22.70 Jan. 741 580 28% 441 60% $ 13,453 $ 14,800 -9% $30.51 $18.16 Feb. 899 549 64% 520 58% $ 19,069 $ 14,000 36% $36.67 $21.21 Mar. 738 647 14% 667 90% $ 22,097 $ 16,500 34% $33.13 $29.94 Apr. 588 $ 15,000 May. 412 $ 10,500 Jun. 208 $ 5,300 Jul. 157 $ 4,000 Aug. 129 $ 3,300 Sep. 78 $ 2,000 Oct. 106 $ 2,700 Nov. 208 $ 5,300 Dec. 482 $ 12,300 ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'00 2,378 1,776 34% 1,628 68% $ 54,619 $ 45,300 21% $33.55 $22.97 AVG'00 793 592 34% 543 68% $ 18,206 $ 15,100 21% $33.55 $22.97 Appendix C Membership Activity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |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 ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ |~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ 1999 | | Dec. 10,325 -2.6% |213 48| 114 400 405 387 22 411 | | 2000 | | Jan. 10,005 -3.1% |213 47| 162 98 741 580 13 323 Feb. 9,992 -0.1% |213 47| 191 98 899 549 1 217 Mar. 9,924 -0.7% |213 47| 153 98 738 647 24 195 Appendix D Sponsorship, Homepage Data and Information Providers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Org. Org. | Line Line | New Total Free -Dec. | Home of Accts Accts | Spons Spons | IPs IPs Pages % | Page Memb ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~ 1999 | | | Dec. 2 65| 0 8 | -20 223 223 32.7% | 841 8.1% | | | 2000 | | | Jan. 0 65| 0 8 | -5 218 268 20.2% | 848 8.5% Feb. 5 70| 0 8 | 5 223 273 1.9% | 850 8.5% Mar. 3 73| 0 8 | 1 219 274 0.4% | 845 8.5% Appendix E Modem Usage Data - Weekly Sessions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PPP Users PPP Users Text Users Total Increase Main Pool Mitel Pool Total PPP (Main Pool) Sessions Decrease ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ 1999 Dec. 32,146 68% 8,380 18% 40,526 86% 6,485 14% 47,011 -38% 2000 Jan. 38,628 53% 8,750 12% 47,378 65% 25,501 35% 72,879 55% Feb. 60,580 66% 7,695 8% 68,275 74% 23,985 26% 92,260 27% Mar. 36,545 54% 8,257 12% 44,802 67% 22,365 33% 67,167 -27% Appendix F Modem Usage Data - Unique Users ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PPP Users PPP Users Text Users Total Increase Main Pool Mitel Pool Total PPP (Main Pool) Users Decrease ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ 1999 Dec. 3,719 41% 1,086 12% 4,805 53% 4,293 47% 9,098 -28% 2000 Jan. 3,736 39% 1,103 12% 4,839 51% 4,705 49% 9,544 5% Feb. 3,059 45% 1,050 16% 4,109 61% 2,648 39% 6,757 -29% Mar. 2,834 44% 1,040 16% 3,874 60% 2,581 40% 6,455 65% Appendix G Modem Availability & Test Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 04/05 18:27 to 04/07 14:21 - 2,036 attempts 04/07 16:35 to 04/10 9:47 - 3,012 attempts ~~~~~ 5,048 atempts 271-9768 520-1135 520-9013 Hr:Min Samp Aval Fail Samp Aval Fail Samp Aval Fail ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 00:00 100 33% 67% 100 94% 6% 100 38% 36% 01:00 100 38% 62% 100 89% 11% 98 59% 33% 02:00 1 0% 100% 1 100% 0% 0 0% 0% 07:00 100 43% 57% 100 94% 6% 100 68% 29% 08:00 100 41% 59% 100 93% 7% 100 46% 38% 09:00 96 39% 60% 96 89% 10% 96 32% 41% 10:00 80 48% 51% 80 85% 15% 80 32% 37% 11:00 80 40% 60% 80 85% 15% 80 37% 27% 12:00 80 28% 71% 80 91% 8% 80 62% 31% 13:00 80 37% 62% 80 97% 2% 80 52% 40% 14:00 68 25% 75% 67 89% 10% 67 44% 37% 15:00 60 31% 65% 60 83% 16% 60 41% 30% 16:00 69 15% 79% 68 82% 17% 68 39% 35% 17:00 80 17% 78% 80 85% 15% 80 36% 38% 18:00 92 29% 70% 91 84% 15% 91 38% 24% 19:00 100 32% 67% 100 85% 15% 100 31% 24% 20:00 100 22% 77% 100 83% 17% 100 41% 30% 21:00 100 19% 81% 100 80% 20% 100 49% 26% 22:00 100 21% 78% 100 82% 18% 100 38% 24% 23:00 100 24% 76% 100 81% 19% 100 50% 34% ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1,686 29% 70% 1,683 88% 12% 1,680 42% 31% Appendix H Modem Error Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 271-9768 520-1135 520-9013 ALL ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ DialTimeout - 0.0% - 0.0% - 0.0% - 0.0% ModemInitTimeout 4 0.2% 1 0.1% 2 0.1% 7 0.1% NoCarrier 261 15.5% 149 8.9% 509 30.3% 919 18.2% NoDialTone - 0.0% - 0.0% 2 0.1% 2 0.0% NoLoginPrompt - 0.0% 3 0.2% 1 0.1% 4 0.1% NoServiceMenu 878 52.1% 54 3.2% 25 1.5% 957 19.0% OtherFailure 8 0.5% 10 0.6% 4 0.2% 22 0.4% ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ TOTAL ERROR 1,151 68.3% 217 12.9% 543 32.3% 1,911 37.9% Busy 11 0.7% - 0.0% 393 23.4% 404 8.0% ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ FAILED CALLS 1,162 69.0% 217 12.9% 936 55.7% 2,315 45.9% Success 523 31.0% 1,466 87.1% 744 44.3% 2,733 54.1% ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1,685 100.0% 1,683 100.0% 1,680 100.0% 5,048 100.0% Appendix I VolNet Progress ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Applications Applications received 300 Ineligible/incomplete/transferred 35 Withdrawn 22 Accepted 243 Computers New computers 161 Recycled computers 19 Modems 7 Upgrades reimbursed 1 Internet Connections Installed 244 Training On-site training 227 Hands-on Internet workshops (1 day) 137 Appendix I Urban CAP Sites ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Government (HRDC) 6 Libraries Urban 17 Rural 16 Schools 78 TAPP 35 Millennium Learning Centres 20 The Region 17 Municipalities 10 Independents & rural sites 21 ~~~ 220 -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524