"Our challenge is to maintain our culture and live globally. We need the means and the ways to allow skilled workers to work and communicate from our remote area and also to work locally. We want a role in the wider economy so that our future engineers, lawyers and professionals can provide services while continuing to live and to participate in the communities." Dr. Matthew Coon-Come Eeyou Communications Network Serving Eeyou Istchee and the James Bay region of northern Québec ECN Network and Corporate Profile Corporation Profile Press Reports Message:Grand Chief Matthew Coon-Come Message: Mayor Gérald Lemoyne Statement of ECN Board Chairman Ashley Iserhoff Carrier and Network Services Construction Maps: Updates & Status Links and References Contacts	Message from Dr. Matthew Coon-Come, Grand Chief, Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) For the Cree of Eeyou Istchee, ECN represents an opportunity that will require serious efforts to make it succeed. Over the past 10 years, the Cree have invested substantially in broadband technology. We coordinated a strategy to work with our neighbours to advance broadband in the region. Our goal was to deliver a service comparable and competitive with that offered in Canada's major cities. We also wanted fair and equitable treatment for everyone in Eeyou Istchee and the James Bay region -- and to have the right tools for efficient social and economic development. We initiated research to identify where fibre-optic circuits were available, where we had to build new lines, and the training we require. We invested in the future, our future. Now the federal and provincial governments have gotten on board, and together, we are ready to roll. This time, we will not be left behind. We held lengthy discussions with Hydro-Quebec to purchase the high value optical fibers in their electricity transport structure, high over the power lines from LG1 to St. Felicien. The talks began after the signing of the Paix des Braves. For us, it was an opportunity to continue our negotiations with Hydro-Quebec, partner with our Jamesien neighbours, and approach the north-south Digital Divide collectively. For us, it was not hard to understand the meaning of "unserved" or "underserved" when it came to broadband access. Together, we organized a non-profit corporation, Eeyou Communications Network, to serve all the 14 villages, communities, settlements and centres of the north, with a secure connection capable of brings tele-medicine, tele-education and distance learning, public safety, multimedia applications, e-Government, high speed access to Internet, third generation mobile services, a choice of service providers and telecom applications, and connectivity to multiple networks. The rural-urban divide -- the Digital Divide -- is a phenomenon felt in many Aboriginal and northern communities, communities without broadband connections to large centres. This division does more than deprive Internet to the disadvantaged; it affects the way businesses develop, it affects the way the economy develops, it affects the way we can attract human resources to the North to support our development, it affects the way health and education is delivered and it makes distant travel necessary, if only to obtain basic services. It deprives the regions of access to medical specialists, advanced education, alternative telecommunications services, and the capability to compete effectively. By addressing this need to close the Digital Divide, we believe that rural communities can thrive, and create a future that is both local and global. It will provide the incentive to develop our own tools using IP technologies over broadband infrastructures. Our challenge is to maintain our culture and live globally. We need the means and the ways to allow skilled workers to work and communicate from our remote area and also to work locally. We want a role in the wider economy so that our future engineers, lawyers and professionals can provide services while continuing to live and to participate in the communities. These new capabilities -- IP and broadband technologies -- will help our young people succeed and serve our own community at the same time. ECN will be in the communities, deploying fibre-optic lines and technical services. This means communities can develop local resources in technologies to operate and to maintain this network. It also means we can develop jobs, skills and human resources - and create an economic domino effect. . We are here today to launch ECN as an achievement, as an example that our work can be a collective effort to benefit our region - and like our other enterprises, will spread well beyond the limits of Eeyou Istchee and James Bay. After all, we are always seeking new opportunities for our growing population. This is an exceptional telecommunications experiment. Together with our partners, we will continue down this road to a better tomorrow.