FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Partnership will deliver affordable, high quality, remote Internet access

Ottawa, December XX, 1999 - University and college students across the National Capital Region will be able to access the Internet more quickly, easily and affordably, thanks to a new partnership between the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI), Carleton University, La Cité collégiale, The University of Ottawa, AT&T Canada, Cyberus and ARRAY Development. Together, these institutions and companies are putting in place PSHRI, a non-profit organization that will deliver bilingual Internet communication services for education.

PSHRI, coordinated through OCRI's SmartCapital initiative, will implement a common dial access pool and a community information portal to provide Internet access and dial-up help desk services to approximately 40,000 students, professors and staff at the partnering universities and college. This service is the first of its kind in Canada.

For $110 per year, users will be able to dial into their educational institution's network to access their existing e-mail, news and web services, from anywhere within the National Capital free calling region. The bilingual service will be available in January 2000.

"This is truly a good news story about the public and private sectors coming together to use information and communication technologies to empower a segment of the population and make life - and study - easier," says Greg Marshall, Executive Director, PSHRI, at OCRI. "The universities and La Cité collégiale identified a common and pressing need - high quality, affordable, off-campus network access. Together, with the help of OCRI, AT&T Canada, a respected Canadian full-service telecommunications provider, Cyberus, an innovative, locally-based Internet service provider, and ARRAY Development, a leader in development of Internet procurement applications, we will provide the bilingual services students, professors and staff require to succeed."

The PSHRI service is simple. Users will be able to set up their account by running a program from a CD. After that, the connection is only a mouse-click away. A 24-hours per day help desk will alleviate all connection-related problems. Support services will be available in both English and French, reflecting the bilingual nature of the National Capital community. An official launch celebration will be held in January.

For more information:
Nora Gorman
Director, Communications
Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI)
(613) 592-8160 ext. 256
ngorman@ocri.ca

Greg Marshall
Executive Director, PSHRI
(613) 592-8160 ext. 272
gmarshall@ocri.ca