Executive Director's Report January, 2000 =========================== February 20, 2000 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The number of new members in January exceeded our projection by 65% at 162. The Budgeted revenue from new members was based on a prediction that 85% would donate however, and this month only 45.1% donated. The Budget anticipates an average donation of $30.00 but the average donation this month was $23.88. The net result of these two variances resulted in a difference of -$757.00 or -30%. No. No. % Of Avg. Avg. New Budget Regist Memb $ Budget Regist Donat'n Memb. (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donat'n All New ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ 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. 114 400 -72% 65 57.0% $ 1,794 $ 4,000 -55% $61.54 $35.09 ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ 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. 98 $ 2,500 Mar. 98 $ 2,500 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'99 162 98 65% 73 45.1% $ 1,743 $2,500 -30% $23.88 $10.76 Avg'99 162 98 65% 73 45.1% $1,743 $2,500 -30% $23.88 $10.76 b) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The number of members renewing in January exceeded the Budget forecast by 28% at 741, and the average renewal donation of $30.51 was on target with the Budgeted forecast of $30.00, but only 60% of renewing members donated, resulting in a shortfall of $1,347, or -9% for the month. No. % Of Avg. Renwl No. Budget Renwl Renwl $ Budget Renwl Donate Renwl (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donatn All Ren ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ 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. 405 387 5% 339 83.7% $ 11,200 $ 7,900 42% $33.04 $27.65 ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'98 6,587 8,892 -26% 5,554 84% $149,521 $181,400 -18% $26.92 $22.70 AVG'98 549 741 -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. 549 $ 14,000 Mar. 647 $ 16,500 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'98 741 580 28% 441 60% $ 13,543 $ 14,800 -9% $30.51 $18.16 AVG'98 742 580 28% 441 60% $ 13,543 $ 14,800 -9% $30.51 $18.16 c) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NCF membership continues above the 10,000 mark, although membership declined by 3.1% since December 1999. Bot the number of new registrations and the number of renewals however, exceeded the Budget figure. |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 Oct. 10,669 -4.0% |213 50| 201 400 320 309 8 652 Nov. 10,600 -0.6% |213 50| 260 400 268 314 268 597 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 d) Sponsorship, Homepage Data and Information Providers: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Then number of organizations publishing web pages on NCF continues to increase, primarily through VolNet recipient agencies coming on board. The number of personal home pages increased by 7 this month, despite the decease in the overall number of members. Org. Org. | Line Line | New Total Free -Dec. | Home of Accts Accts | Spons Spons | IPs IPs Pages % | Page Memb ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~ 1999 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% 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% f) Modem Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (i) Weekly Sessions: The number of weekly sessions increased by 25,868 (+ 55%) compared to the December figure. A review of October and November however, suggests that December was an anomaly with January's figure very similar to December and only about 23% higher than October. The most significant component of this apparent increase was the number of weekly sessions attributable to text users with an increase of 19,016, or nearly 300%. The January figure is 18% lower than December however, and only 12% higher than October. PPP Users PPP Users Text Users Total Increase Main Pool Mitel Pool Total PPP (Main Pool) Sessions Decrease ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ 1999 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% 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% (ii) Unique users in a one week period: The number of members (unique users) using the system increased slightly in January with some 446 more members logging on compared to December 1999 for an increase of 5%. The composition of this increase reflects an increase of 412 members using the text-based system together with an increase of 34 using the PPP method. The ratio of text vs. PPP was nearly an even split this month, with PPP users accounting for 51%, while text users accounted for 49%. PPP Users PPP Users Text Users Total Increase Main Pool Mitel Pool Total PPP (Main Pool) Users Decrease ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ 1999 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% 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% f) Modem Availability ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3,431 test logins were made as follows: 17:25 01/19 to 10:53 01/21 - 1,891 attempts 17:19 02/07 to 23:57 02/08 - 1,540 attempts ~~~~~ 3,431 attempts The table below illustrates the levels of success on each of our three modem pools. The main modem pool (520-1135) continues to be the most available and reliable. The high-speed pool (820-9013) is much harder to connect to, particularly between 17:00 and 23:00 when a connection can be made only about 20% of the time (one-in-five attempts). The Mitel pool (271-9768) is similarly hard to reach, although as can be seen in the second table, the reason seems to relate more to equipment and/or line difficulties than busy signals related to high user load. 271-9768 520-1135 520-9013 Hr:Min Samp Aval Fail Samp Aval Fail Samp Aval Fail ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 00:00 60 41% 56% 60 85% 15% 60 55% 18% 01:00 60 38% 61% 60 93% 6% 60 81% 13% 02:00 1 0% 100% 0 0% 0% 2 100% 0% 07:00 60 40% 60% 60 95% 5% 60 71% 20% 08:00 60 45% 55% 60 96% 3% 60 51% 23% 09:00 60 28% 71% 60 83% 16% 60 36% 25% 10:00 58 34% 65% 58 81% 18% 58 27% 13% 11:00 40 25% 75% 40 85% 15% 40 42% 22% 12:00 40 30% 70% 40 87% 12% 40 60% 15% 13:00 40 27% 70% 40 95% 5% 40 50% 15% 14:00 40 42% 57% 40 90% 10% 40 35% 27% 15:00 40 32% 62% 40 87% 12% 40 52% 22% 16:00 40 27% 42% 40 82% 15% 40 30% 20% 17:00 66 21% 54% 66 87% 12% 64 25% 17% 18:00 80 30% 68% 80 78% 21% 80 28% 11% 19:00 80 11% 85% 80 76% 22% 80 20% 16% 20:00 80 22% 73% 80 75% 21% 80 25% 28% 21:00 80 13% 77% 80 63% 25% 80 21% 23% 22:00 80 20% 63% 80 57% 31% 80 23% 6% 23:00 80 30% 70% 79 77% 22% 79 22% 22% ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1,145 28% 67% 1,143 79% 14% 1,143 43% 18% The following table explores the modem test results further. The main modem pool (520-1135) returned a busy signal on only 2% of attempts and connected on over 80% of attempts. The high-speed pool (520-9013) returned a busy signal on 43.3% of the attempts but still maintained a success rate of nearly 40%. The Mitel pool (271-9768) had the poorest success rate at 28.5%, but was busy only 5.2% of the time. In this case, the test routine encountered a failure to return a Service Menu for nearly half of the attempts. 271-9768 520-1135 520-9013 ALL ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Busy 59 5.2% 23 2.0% 495 43.3% 577 16.8% DialTimeout 0 0.0% 0 0.0% 0 0.0% 0 0.0% ModemInitTimeout 9 0.8% 3 0.3% 10 0.9% 22 0.6% NoCarrier 180 15.7% 126 11.0% 196 17.1% 502 14.6% NoDialTone 0 0.0% 0 0.0% 1 0.1% 1 0.0% NoLoginPrompt 0 0.0% 4 0.3% 2 0.2% 6 0.2% NoServiceMenu 566 49.4% 52 4.5% 3 0.3% 621 18.1% OtherFailure 5 0.4% 5 0.4% 3 0.3% 13 0.4% Success 326 28.5% 930 81.4% 433 37.9% 1,689 49.2% ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1,145 100.0% 1,143 100.0% 1,143 100.0% 3,431 100.0% 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Projects ~~~~~~~~ (i) Extended Access II - RMOC This project will be re-activated next month we hope, following RMOC's Y2K "clean window". Newbridge Networks have withdrawn their support for this project and a new sponsoring partner will need to be located for terminal server and modems. (ii) Industry Canada - Urban CAP: NCF will chair a committee to explore synergies, common needs and resources, with a view to developing a citywide strategy for Urban CAP rollout in Ottawa. Sandra Huntley has joined NCF's staff (term contract) to guide and coordinate the process. It is expected that most users of these new CAP facilities will become NCF members and will participate in our core services such as email, Thin Client etc. The group will be made up of the several organizations currently working on CAP projects in the Ottawa area. The Coalition of Health and Community Resource Centres has proposed a project to create some 20 CAP sites in the region. Similarly, the Anti-Poverty Projects (T.A.P.P.) plans to install some 35 CAP sites across the City, primarily in low income and public housing areas. The City of Ottawa, The City of Nepean and The City of Gloucester are all interested in creating CAP sites and have named representatives from their transition teams (towards the single-city government) to pursue CAP. In addition, all libraries in the region will expand their public Internet connectivity by moving toward the CAP model and several schools are expected to become "community hubs" with CAP sites as part of their offering. Finally, The Children's Aid Society plans to install CAP sites in several (up to 6) of their facilities in the region. The committee will meet first on Thursday, February 24, 2000. (iii)Industry Canada - VolNet: The delivery phase of the VolNet program continues. The following table illustrates progress to date: Applications Applications received 293 Ineligible/incomplete/transferred 34 Withdrawn 9 Accepted 250 Computers New computers Ordered: 143 Received: 133 Recycled computers Ordered 12 Received: 8 Recycled computers reimbursed 2 Upgrades reimbursed 7 Internet Connections Installed 159 Training On-site training 147 Hands-on Internet workshops (1 day) 3 The classroom-training segment of the VolNet service delivery started on January 17, 2000 at the Rainbow Skills Centre and will continue throughout the month of February. The transfer of the domain "volnet.org" to NCF is now complete with the page now hosted on our server. The contract to host the domain runs until March 31, 2001 includes a small set-up fee as well as a monthly amount for hosting their virtual domain. (iv) HRDC (Office of Learning Technology): Thin Client Despite heavy criticism by the Opposition Party in the House of Commons, and in the press, HRDC officials have confirmed that our "Thin Client " project will proceed as planned. Mr. Mac Harb, Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre, made a formal announcement about the project (as representative for the Minister of HRDC Jane Stewart) at our Birthday Celebration on February 2, 2000. (v) HRDC (Office of Learning Technology): Web-mail At the request of HRDC staff, we made minor revisions to our proposal for the development phase of our Web-Mail project and re-submitted it on January 27, 2000. We await confirmation from HRDC that the project will be funded. b) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our own Donna Shaw wrote Monitor Magazine's FreeBytes column for February. Shaw promoted our 7th Birthday and provided may details about what we were up to, and when and where the event would happen, Ms. Shaw's article went on to feature details and strong support of our Thin Client project. Shaw's article can be read at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ip/freenet/announce/monitor/2000-02 or in text-mode, type "go freebytes" On Wednesday, January 26, 2000, CFRA featured a short piece on FreeNet and our Thin Client project including a short clip from an interview with Chris Cope. Later, on Friday, January 28, 2000, Chris Cope was interviewed by CFRA's Rob Snow and Derrek Mellon of the Ottawa Business Journal on CFRA's "Business at Night" show. The interview, which exceeded 11 minutes, provided an opportunity to talk about the success which FreeNet has enjoyed over the last seven years and discuss current activities and projects, including out new Thin Client project. Le Droit did a story in their February 1, 2000 edition entitled "Un beau cadeau pour un précurseur d'Internet" The story was positive about FreeNet an how far we have come and provided positive support for our Thin Client project. CJOH, Ottawa's local CTV affiliate sent a reporter and film crew to our 7th Birthday Celebration. The story, which appeared on both the late news at 11:30pm on February 2, 2000 and on the morning news on February 3rd. The story congratulated FreeNet on its 7th Birthday, portrayed the range of our membership and provided details about our Thin Client project. CHRO, an independent television station in Ottawa also sent a film crew to the Birthday celebration and as with CJOH, the story was featured on both the late-evening news on February 2nd and the morning news on February 3rd. On Thursday, February 3, 2000, The Ottawa Citizen ran a story on page A4 (front section) entitled "FreeNet gets funding despite scandal." The scandal referred to was about accusations of HRDC's mishandling of its grant program, but the story was very positive about FreeNet and provided excellent details about our Thin Client project and named our corporate sponsors. c) 7th Birthday celebration This year's Birthday celebration was a tremendous success. Well over 100 people were on hand, including members, Board representatives, and other friends of FreeNet. CBC's John Lacharity exhibited his usual warm and entertaining style as our Master of Ceremonies making resulting in a program which was not only entertaining, but flowed along smoothly. Mac Harb, Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre was on hand as Jane Stewart's emissary to present a well-researched address, which described our Thin Client project and the support, which HRDC offers to organizations and projects such as ours. We had tables representing several of our SIGs and corporate supporters and knots of FreeNet members enjoying face-to-face dialogue, which for many happens only once a year. There was Birthday Cake and refreshments for everybody and a sense of excitement throughout the crowd. d) Survey NCF's survey is now underway, and can be completed by members by surfing to http://www.ncf.ca/ncf/survey/ Since the survey began, some 324 members have completed the survey. Jean Wilmot [aa145] will evaluate the results and report her findings to the Board. d) Auction ~~~~~~~ The NCF Auction will remain dormant until spring, at which time a renewed drive for auction items to be donations will be mounted and interest re-kindled. e) Speakers Task Force ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Richard Laframboise [ej227] has agreed to take on the task of coordinator of the Speakers Task Force. Previously, the team held monthly classes at Nepean Public Library and the Ottawa Public Library downtown. The plan is to revitalize the team, with a view to re-instating the classes at the Nepean Library first, but later, to attempt to recruit sufficient instructors to be able to offer the additional class in a central or Eastern location as well as wquiping the team to handle special teaching opportunities which might arise through our association with VolNet and the CAP program. People interested in helping revitalize the Speakers Team should contact Richard. f) Top Five Priorities - ED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Acquire and install new modems/terminal severs at Carleton (2) Complete installation of Cisco AS5200 Access Server at Mitel (3) AGM (4) Projects - Webmail - Urban CAP - VolNet - Thin Client (5) Continued focus on remaining System bugs. 3. System Administration ======================== a) Reliability Concerns ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The current plan of action to resolve and improve the current state of the modem pool is to invest in a more modern access server solution. We have already contacted several vendors and continue to examine available options. Ruling out any digital T1/PRI solution due to exorbitant line costs beyond our budget we are left with a select few analog solutions. Analog NAS (Network Access Server, generally a terminal server with integrated modems) systems are not usually built to scale, as the general thinking is T1/PRI systems is the way to go for scalable solutions. However, stackable mid-range solutions such as the 3COM RAS 1500 may be the perfect fit for NCF. This system provides for 24 incoming analog V.34 33.6 connections for each stack. FreeNet could use 7 stacked units to provide a total of 168 simultaneous v.34 33.6 capable connections. This would be a unified solution backed by a RADIUS server conceptually similar to the Mitel setup, but with better equipment. Negotiations are underway with Keating Technologies and 3Com Canada Inc. to begin a process of acquisition of as many RAS 1500 units as can be purchased within our Budget. 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 ~~~~~~~ A Sparc5 system has been installed in the racks for service as the AGM2000 machine. The AGM for the first time will be run in a web environment. The system will be accessible both via Netscape and Lynx users. Mark Mielke (al278) has nearly finished the new web-based software that we will use to run the AGM this year. It should be ready for internal testing and deployment the week of February 21, 2000, byt the time of the NCF Board Meeting. d) Netscape Enterprise Web Server ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A build of the NES 4.0SP4 server suitable for drop-in replacement of the existing NES 2.01 server has commenced. This production build still requires the migration of the /files11 filesystem from the current webserver machine (f4) to the new UltraSPARC (f9). e) Dynamic HTML ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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/) has been installed. This software environment enables us to create and support dynamic HTML offerings, particularly useful for our Webteam. Richard Bethell (cj434) will explore migrating data currently collected in HTML to take advantage of this environment through web-access to a database. Volunteers will be able to continue work on CapitalFind and similar projects without need of special HTML skills. Similarly, this environment enables us to consider creation of a community portal containing dynamic links to content generated by outside sources. f) Community Portal ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dan Green (bd304) has begun experimental development of a portal system that will integrate smoothly with the Netscape webserver. This software will be compatible with the Community Portal system while being more flexible and attractive. g) Mitel ~~~~~ The 5200 has been installed in the computer room racks, and configured for use with the existing Mitel system. However, a troublesome problem is showing up on the Mitel PBX that must be resolved before the 5200 can be put in service. Cisco support has been enlisted to get to the bottom of this problem, as it may be a hardware issue. h) Migrate POP ~~~~~~~~~~~ The current POP server is a Sparc2 running the simplistic QPOP server. Freenet3, which had been removed from service, will be used to replace the weak Sparc2 system. The new server will be powered by Netscape Messenger 4, which provides an integrated POP/IMAP and WebMail solution. This service will also be backed by Netscape Directory 4, an LDAP server which will provide flexible user settings and preferences as easily accessible over the web as on the command-line. It should be noted that the Netscape Directory 4 server would additionally allow us to provide RADIUS services to support a modern terminal server setup. A working test system can be accessed at http://messenger.ncf.ca/. Standard FreeNet userids should work with this system. i) Sysadmin Priorities ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Complete Solaris migration plan, retire SunOS. (2) Migrate POP server to SS10 and Netscape Messenging (2) Migrate webserver to UltraSPARC server. (4) Resolve issues with Cisco AS5200 at Mitel (5) Configure and enable additional NAS at Carleton -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524