Recognizing that the current financial environment is placing pressure on its user organizations, ORANO is freezing ORION user access fees for 2010 to the current 2009 levels.

"We are all asked to tighten our belts and this is one way we can contribute and help address the economic reality that is affecting our users," says ORANO's Director of Corporate Affairs and Finance, Sophie Maksym. "We are giving our user organizations this heads-up now so that they can incorporate this information into their 2010 budget planning."

The freeze will be applied to ORION's basic Research and Education (R&E) service effective from January 2010 to December 2010, and will benefit all of the over 80 organizations that are now connected to ORION, from postsecondary institutions and teaching hospitals, to cultural agencies, to school boards. Over 1.3 million Ontario students now have access to ORION, which links over 75,000 researchers, faculty and teachers.

"As a not-for-profit organization, ORANO remains committed to a fee schedule that reflects equity and fairness," says Maksym. "We still, however, need to ensure sufficient revenues to maintain a viable organization, allow for critical network operations, maintenance and upgrades, supporting our users' advanced network and technology needs, and providing a growing suite of value added services," she added.

ORION user connection fees represent the bulk of the organization's revenues, and are based on a six-tier, annual flat fee structure - not on bandwidth usage.

School board fees also reflect the principle of equity and fairness, following a four-tier fee structure which applies the lowest fees to the smallest school boards, and incrementally higher fees for the larger boards.

ORANO will review its plans for 2011 fees next year in 2010.

Details on eligibility and access fees are available from the website Downloads section.