When companies look to relocate or expand in North Carolina, Joe Starks is a good man for them to get to know.
Starks is the founder and president of ECC Technologies, a telecommunications consultancy that has been part of many network projects in North Carolina and around the world. When a company looks to open up a facility at a new location, ECC puts together site sheets for them that map the telecommunications infrastructure of prospective sites. A glance at one of these sheets shows the coaxial cables from cable providers running to homes, the locations of the wireless towers, even the fiber optics of the North Carolina Research and Education Network.
But expanding companies are looking beyond the telecommunications infrastructure of the present. They’re more interested in what that picture will look like in 20 or 25 years. That means they want to know where the dark fiber is.
“If you don’t have it, chances are you’re not going to see some of these businesses,” Starks said at MCNC’s NCREN Community Day, an annual event marking the growth of the network and the entities it serves. The two-day event at the N.C. State University’s James B. Hunt Jr. Library finishes today.
Dark fiber refers to fiber optic lines that are in the ground but is so far unused. This dark fiber criss-crossing the state means that rural areas stand as good a chance as urban ones to attracting new and expanding businesses. Businesses relocating or expanding in North Carolina want to collaborate with the established health care companies and high tech companies in the state. Collaboration means they face a choice: Either locate near those companies or pick a site near a fiber-optic backbone that will provide a reliable link to them. You don’t have to locate near big companies in order to work with them, Starks said. With the right telecommunications infrastructure, a company could set up shop – and hire locally – anywhere in North Carolina.
“Rural counties can compete with urban counties for the same jobs,” Starks said.
Some rural communities are well on their way to deploying fiber optic connections. Yadkin Valley Telephone Membership Cooperative runs fiber-to-the-home connections for 52 percent of its customer base, said CEO Mitzie Branon. These customers enjoy features such as Internet protocol television, or IPTV.
While providing fiber connections to more than half of its customer base is a success, a digital divide persists. Branon knows that the other half of her customer base doesn’t yet have the same speedy and reliable Internet access and they’re demanding it. As more people work from home, good Internet connections becomes a necessity. Faster broadband also serves a telehealth function as it brings rural communities closer to specialists.
Better broadband offers more than business functions. Yadkin Valley has made it a civic component. The cooperative offers Wi-Fi at local sporting events. And a local IPTV channel on the network airs high school games, choral concerts and other local events. These features aren’t available to everybody and Branon said Yadkin Valley is working to improve “last mile” connections for the customers who don’t yet have have access to fiber. She said Yadkin Valley is willing to work with a partner like MCNC, which operates the statewide NCREN. While the NCREN does not serve homes and businesses directly, MCNC does lease out its lines. Where feasible, it can light its dark fiber to help providers fill out gaps in their own networks.
The task of reaching underserved communities with faster broadband is a challenge that Sybil Tate relates to. Tate, assistant county manager for Person County, has a single broadband goal: that the poorest and most remote student be able to his or her homework on a computer wearing their pajamas.
What will it take to make that happen in a sparsely populated county of just 40,000 people? The first step is getting service to underserved areas, she said. Next, every student must have access to a device. And third, broadband must be affordable. Making broadband affordable might be the biggest hurdle. Tate said that she’s looking to find a dedicated revenue stream to support broadband or help from the federal government.
“For some, $40 a month is affordable, for many it’s not,” Tate said. “For some, $10 a month is not affordable.”
