ONÁ:KE
First Nations Connectivity Readiness Toolkit
Document your connectivity landscape and plan the next steps, with the evidence a funder will ask for.
Purpose: help your community document its connectivity landscape and plan its next steps. Most First Nations organizations pay for telecom services across multiple sites without a centralized record of current facilities, costs, or contract end dates. This toolkit guides your team through a structured inventory, defines facility-specific requirements, and explains the functional differences between fibre, fixed wireless, radio, and satellite in plain language. It equips you with targeted questions to hold service providers accountable, and turns your findings into both an actionable roadmap and the documentation required for funding applications.
What’s inside
- Site and service inventory template: centralize contracts, costs, and current connection types across all community sites.
- Facility needs assessment: identify actual bandwidth and operational requirements site by site.
- Reliability and outage log: track downtime to enforce provider service level agreements.
- Plain-language options briefing: a clear breakdown comparing fibre, fixed wireless, radio, and satellite.
- Provider vetting guide: strategic questions to ask vendors before signing contracts.
- Funding readiness checklist: the standardized documentation required by connectivity grant programs.
Who it’s for
Band offices and tribal councils; health, education, and housing organizations; and any First Nations entity preparing a connectivity project or funding application.
05 · Against the standards
This is the Onake step. We take everything gathered and measure it against recognized frameworks — the yardsticks that turn observations into real findings. In plain terms:
- CRTC universal service objective — Canada’s national broadband benchmark — 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload, the level every community is meant to reach.
- Telecommunications and structured cabling standards — the established conventions for how networks are built and measured, so capacity and reliability claims can be tested rather than taken on trust.
Basic digital package
Payment by invoice or e-transfer. The basic package is delivered by email within two business days.
Customized community assessment and workshop
We discuss scope and pricing together, based on your community’s needs and capacity.
Let’s discuss your needsThese templates are professionally drafted business documents and do not constitute legal advice or engineering design. For legal review, please consult independent counsel.