New Year's Greetings and NCF activities
by Marita Moll
Hello advisors. This is a note wishing you all the very best in the New
Year. As we have since 1993, we will be looking for useful activities
that support our mission statement:
* /To ensure that all Canadians are able to participate in
community-based communications and electronic information services
by promoting and supporting local community network initiatives./
* /To represent and promote the Canadian community networking movement
at the national and international level./
In 2025, TC was very active in the international discussions around the
World Summit for the Information Society +20. This is now completed and
I will share some final results. In this message I thought I would copy
you on this excerpt from the year end greetings from the National
Capital Freenet which itemizes their activities and achievements over
2025. In the spirit of learning from each other, please feel free to
share any similiar year-end roundups you feel are appropriate.
Marita
**
*____________________________________________________________________________________*
*..... excerpt......
*
*2. Some of what we accomplished in 2025*
NCF’s mission to advance digital equity centres around ensuring everyone
in our community has access to internet that’s affordable, reliable and
that they can understand how to use, while feeling safe online.
We’re proud of all we’ve been able to accomplish, from when we first
launched our dial-up services on February 1, 1993 to this past year!
*In 2025 that included:*
* moving our data centre, adding additional network resilience;
* beta-testing and launching Fibre-to-the-Home internet services
<https://www.ncf.ca/en/high-speed-internet/home-internet/>;
* recruiting and training a bunch of new HelpDesk volunteers thanks to
the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation <https://otf.ca/>;
* updating our bylaws
<https://www.ncf.ca/en/who-we-are/governance/bylaws/>, official
purpose <https://www.ncf.ca/en/who-we-are/governance/> and
implementing a new Strategic Plan
<https://www.ncf.ca/en/documents/141/NCF-StratPlan2528-Overview-20250625-v...>;
* winning a Community Service Award
<https://rcwo.org/Stories/our-2025-award-winners> from the Rotary
Club of West Ottawa <https://rcwo.org/>; and
* advocating to the CRTC and government, including a recent submission
related to network resilience and reliability.
<https://www.ncf.ca/en/high-speed-internet/advocacy/>
*The biggest thing we did in 2025 was launch CommuniFi, our free-to-use
community WiFi network pilot project, starting in Vanier-Overbrook. Over
the past year, CommuniFi has:*
* *connected more than 3800 unique devices for those living on low
incomes in and around 251 Donald Street, including a new health
clinic and a free tax-filing clinic;*
* *offered speeds tested up to 830Mbps; and *
* *blocked more than 100,000 malware attempts and 20,000 phishing
attempts using CIRA's DNS Firewall.*
*Check out our latest update on CommuniFi here
<https://www.ncf.ca/en/high-speed-internet/community-wifi/>. *
*Check out a video about the project here
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Y8cHRaCkc>. *
The CommuniFi pilot was funded by CIRA (the Canadian Internet
Registration Authority)
<https://www.cira.ca/en/resources/news/net-good/cira-and-national-capital-...>
and built in partnership with Ottawa Community Housing
<https://www.och-lco.ca/free-wi-fi-pilot-project-launches-in-two-ottawa-co...>
and Hiboo Networks
<https://www.hiboonetworks.com/news/free-community-wi-fi-pilot-project-now...>,
a subsidiary of Hydro Ottawa. We’re particularly proud of this unique
model that brings together not-for-profits and municipally owned
organizations to build local community digital infrastructure.
In many ways CommuniFi takes NCF back to our roots
<https://www.ncf.ca/en/who-we-are/our-history/> as a community network
offering dial-up, just with upgraded technology.
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Marita
2 months