Telus Sponsorship of racerocks.com

THE ROLE OF TELUS IN BRINGING
RACE ROCKS AND PEARSON COLLEGE
TO THE INTERNET

Background History: With the fast pace of change in the world of the internet, it is important to recognize that the technology we take so much for granted now was not always available at Race Rocks. We have been fortunate to have people in the telecommunications industry who have helped us plan and have helped sponsor our goals of providing to the education community our unique resources . In the summer of 1995, BCTEL, which would later become the company TELUS, laid the fibre optic connections to Pearson College Campus. This beginning of our Global Electronic Village was made possible when the college received a significant donation from a College Patroness support from this Patron and from BCTEL in the support of technology on the campus allowed the members of our college to start to share our diverse set of resources with the global community. It has also meant a valuable access for our international students from over 80 countries to the vast resources of the internet.

By the spring of 1996, we had the library computers connected, running on 56.6 KBps and internet operating for students on several machines.The administration building was wired after that and in the fall of 1996, the biology-marine lab was hooked up with a temporary line running from the library. In the summer of 1997 fibre optic cable was laid to all the buildings on campus, completing the foundation infrastructure for our network. At that time a switch in Max Bell Hall gave connectivity to the Language lab computers and the External Relations Office.
Throughout this time we were fortunate to have the volunteer services of a graduate student, Ken Dunham, (PC year 9) in the design and phasing in of our global electronic village.


1995: The fibre optic cable is rolled out and strung along Pearson College Drive from William Head Road by a crew from	This set of photos was taken on Pearson College Drive and at the intersection at the entrance to the campus.	The first fibre optic cables were pulled through to the main distribution box in the administration building.	Fall 1995: From the administration building where the BCTEL fibre terminated, students and faculty dug the trench for the fibre optic cable to a hub in the library. The ground was too wet for a machine to come in to trench and we were determined to make use of the internet availability immediately without having to wait for it to be put in later.
Our history with the sponsorship of TELUS and its former company BC TEL for our Marine Program goes back to the days before racerocks.com was launched.On January 13, 1998, BCTEL (Discovery Learning) representatives took a trip to Race Rocks Ecological Reserve. Pearson College Faculty member Garry Fletcher and some of his students invited them to see first hand many of the Pearson College marine science educational projects that are highlighted on www.racerocks.com.		BCTEL (Discovery Learning) provided the College with internet support, making this unique marine science project globally accessible. Following the Race Rocks visit, BCTEL presented the students with a $5,000 cash gift for the College's annual fund.	Pictured here (left to right, top to bottom): Marty Schubert, (Business Development Manager), Lorne Sivertson (Business Development Executive), Garry Fletcher, Ragen Halley, Forrest Pass, Maria de Marco Rivadavia , Ramya Ramamurthy, Marcos Vasquez Rodriguez and Sandra Laughland (Account Manager for BCTel.).

In the fall of 1999, we made a presentation to the administration of TELUS who agreed to partner with us as a Millennium Fund partner.	*TELUS DONATES AND INSTALLS THE MICROWAVE TOWER AS A PARTNER IN RACEROCKS.COM*
	The most essential key to the successful operation of racerocks.com was a microwave tower. TELUS came to our rescue, found a decommissioned tower, gave it to the college, installing it and providing the skilled technicians to the microwave connections at both the Race Rocks and the TELUS tower end at the observatory.
TELUS representatives went out on an early trip to Race Rocks to assist in the planning of the project. PC student Peter Seem went along as our on the scene reporter to record this event.	In our "UPDATE" of February 6, 2000 we noted the following in : "TELUS to the Rescue:" Telus provided the solution to our biggest challenge when they agreed to provide the tower required to mount the radio antenna at the Pearson College end of our radio link. This was a turning point for the whole project and we are all very grateful to Telus. Staff in their Advanced Communication division are working on the issues around delivering the streaming video out of Pearson College and onto the Internet through the Telus server farm."	We were concerned from the beginning about the space that would be needed for our website knowing it would have archived video and vast educational resources which would consume space and bandwidth. TELUS went to extra lengths to ensure that space would be available We continue to depend on the reliability of TELUS as they provide the server and considerable space for the hosting the racerocks.com website.
	In January 2007, TELUS provides complete web service on a new server and confirms their continued support for the operation of this website.

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