Ontario politicians may be trying to pass legislation banning online
gambling adverts in the province, but elsewhere in Canada there's
a more welcoming attitude to the industry. The Kahnawake First Nation
Mohawks in Quebec province, home to well over 300 online gambling
brands and host to a multitude of company servers will soon have competition
from The Alexander First Nation.
Announcing the formation of an online gambling commission this week,
a spokesman for the Alexander First Nation said it intends to regulate
companies that are granted licenses to operate under the tribe's sovereignty.
A spokesperson for the new commission said it plans to offer online
gaming licenses to suitably qualified applicants. The commission is
confident that the regulations will ensure a safe, high-quality environment
for Internet gamblers.
The Alexander Gaming Commission's mission will be to regulate and
control gaming and other gaming related activities within and from
the Alexander First Nation. All interactive gaming such as online
casinos and online poker sites, will have to satisfy three basic principles
to obtain a license to operate:
* Only suitable persons and entities are permitted to operate within
Alexander
* Games must be fair to the players
* Winners are paid
The Alexander First Nation is one of 44 such sovereign communities
in the Alberta province of Canada. In 2002 the tribe was awarded $63
million by the Canadian government in settlement of a claim dating
back to 1905 when approximately 3 851.9 hectares (9,518 acres) of
reserve lands were allegedly surrendered by the First Nation.
The settlement provided Alexander First Nation with approximately
$63 million in compensation for the damages and losses suffered as
a result of the surrender. The settlement amount was substantial because
the former reserve lands are productive agricultural lands and were
part of a gas unit producing natural gas from 1955 to 1997. The majority
of the compensation was placed in a trust to ensure that future generations
of Alexander First Nation members benefit from the settlement.
The Alexander First Nation also revealed that it will open a new,
state-of-the-art Data Centre in December this year for the convenience
of licensees.
Alexander Internet Technologies has been formed to manage and staff
the facility, and construction is underway on a high availability
25 000 square foot data centre, offering clients secure server co-location
facilities enjoying uncapped bandwidth, wirespeed connectivity, 24x7x365
onsite support, and failsafe backup and redundancy through a strategic
alliance with a sister site in Asia.
With an ultra-low latency of .04 seconds, the data centre is ideally
suited to allow clients to service end customers in Asia and Europe.
The new AIT facility, opening December, 2006, includes fully serviced
office space (7,600 sq.ft.) available for clients, and management
promises unsurpassed speed, security, and quality.
Alexander First Nation has established and empowered Alexander Internet
Technologies (“AIT”) to facilitate the involvement of
Alexander First Nation and its members in internet and technology
industries.
Located 20 minutes from downtown Edmonton, Alberta, AIT offers the
advantage of doing business in a major North American metropolitan
market, in collaboration with a stable and progressive native community
and its government – the Chief and Council of Alexander First
Nation.
“This data center will allow international customers the
comfort of securely running their operations with 100 percent uptime,
while maintaining fail-safe global switchover capability as required,”
said Cheryl Savoie, of Alexander Internet Technologies. “This
offering is in response to market demand, and builds on Alexander
First Nation’s significant investment in the technology.”
The AIT Data Centre Network is comprised entirely of carrier-class
Network hardware, featuring redundancy at all layers. At the hardware
layer multiple routers and switches are configured in parallel with
dynamic routing and switching to ensure automated fail-over during
hardware, software or link failure. The centre is located directly
on multiple diverse fiber rings, and is redundantly connected to IP
carriers by a minimum of two separate local providers. BGP4 is used
in conjunction with the RouteScience PathControl system providing
automated real-time (sub-second), best path route adjustment to ensure
that traffic is delivered to the best provider.
Total network utilization is carefully monitored to enable upgrades
as required to allow provision of a 2-to-1 ratio of available bandwidth
to peak bandwidth. The NOC has been designed to reduce physical stress
and staff requirements by operating in "lights-out" mode.
This is extremely important as it allows AIT to maximise resource
usage and to provide an environment of increased efficiency and security.
Other services on offer by AIT include:
* Backup and disaster recovery which are 100 percent maintained by
professional backup administrators - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
365 days a year. Clients are protected against risks associated with
system changes, catastrophic server failure and other controlled or
uncontrolled events.
* Global balancing services for online gaming applications between
AIT and an Asian Partner or where current servers reside.
The Alexander First Nation, party to Treaty No. 6 with the Government
of Canada in 1876, is located 20 minutes from downtown Edmonton. Covering
7280 hectares, with a population of 1 550 registered members, Alexander
First Nation is a member of the First Nations of Alberta and Canada.