A record was set for the world's longest ATM link at the February G7 Ministerial Conference on the Information Society. Extending from MPR Teltech Ltd. in Burnaby, B.C., to Edifice Leopold in Brussels, Belgium, the link was 11,000 kilometres. The links used to bring a distance education demonstration to Brussels represented an inter-connection of information highways and telecommunications links. The cross-Canada connection was made via the CANARIE national data highway - one of North America's longest single span links in the electronic highway infrastructure - to the EuroATM test network via Teleglobe Canada's facilities. In Europe, it was routed through London, England, to Brussels Gare du Nord and then to Edifice Leopold, site of a demonstration showcase held in conjunction with the Ministerial Conference. The Pacific Rim to Europe connection was linked by multi-vendor ATM switches including Newbridge Networks, FORE and Alcatel. MPR Teltech developed the world's first commercially available ATM switch that is now manufactured and marketed under license by Newbridge. This demonstration is of interest to ACT because it is similar to that proposed for the Virtual Museums International project and demonstrates that such a connection is feasible.
Governments are making increasing use of the Information Highway for the distribution of information. In Canada, the federal government made the last budget available over the network, and several provinces have subsequently done the same thing. Government agencies are primarily making information available via the World Wide Web (WWW). WWW provides for the display of text, graphics, and sound, and for links between related documents. It also provides ways of downloading information you might wish to print and read later. The Canadian government has a WWW site that includes everything from the complete text of the constitution to the words and music (playable if you have the hardware and software) to Oh Canada. It also contains the text of many government position papers as well as links to other related WWW sites including those of many of the provincial governments. Other National Governments are also using of the World Wide Web for distributing information. In the United States there is even a Web site for the White House, complete with audio introductions from President Clinton.