Canupawakpa has been working extremely hard over the past couple of months in order to ensure that broadband services are available in the entire community. Currently, broadband services are only available at the Adult Education and at the elementary/daycare centres.

Manitoba E-Association has been working closely with I-NetLink Incorporated, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to extend services throughout the community. Up until now, the equipment that was available at the main tower was only adequate for providing immediate services to the learning facilities and without an actual ISP for network issues. I-NetLink Wireless has graciously agreed to work with Canupawakpa in order to enhance the bandwidth capabilities at the tower so that the community serving organizations such as the band office, health centre and so forth, can take advantage of these services. It is also intended to allow for homeowners to also obtain this service in the future as well.

Jacie Skelton has also been interacting directly with I-NetLink Wireless and InfoMetrics Incorporated. InfoMetrics is a technical support company that assists clients with developing strategies for broadband services, VLAN, WAN and LAN extensions. Jacie is currently working with InfoMetrics to determine a service fee cost to hard wire all of the community serving organizations in order to provide wireless broadband services.

The need to extend broadband services into all of Canupawakpa is evident. The organizations are seeking broadband for efficiency purposes. In addition, e-services within the community amongst these organizations are currently not possible. In addition, their interaction with the outside world including sending any large files to government funding sources is limited. This is considered to be a large step towards the transformation of an aboriginal smart community.