Editor’s note: Pat Moody, CEO of MCNC which operates the state-wide fiber-based North Carolina Research and Education Network, tells WRAL TechWire’s Fiber Transforms the Triangle event in Cary that faster networks mean exciting times. Her remarks:

Challenges – Opportunities – Exciting Times!

What would we do without high-speed broadband networks today?

Unfortunately, there are still many in North Carolina without the level of connectivity most of us currently enjoy. But fortunately, all of us in the room are working hard and together to usher in a new era of unprecedented access in our state.

Hi, I’m Pat Moody, interim CEO for MCNC. On behalf of the MCNC team, we are happy to join WRAL TechWire, SAS, AT&T and several others in supporting this event – really putting the spotlight on the tremendous fiber efforts and assets that we have right here in North Carolina. I’m looking forward to some great conversations today as we discover how broadband infrastructure will continue to transform the way we live, work, learn and play in North Carolina.

Speaking of discovery, I invite you to Discover MCNC a bit more… who we are and why we do what we do every day for students, educators, researchers, health care practitioners, public safety officers, and many others who constituent the bulk of the NCREN user community.

This year is a milestone for MCNC as we mark the 30th anniversary of the North Carolina Research and Education Network. We will spotlight NCREN and many of our white-glove network services and applications even more on Nov. 5-6 at our annual NCREN Community Day just down the road at NC State University.

MCNC’s model of owned fiber and dedicated bandwidth on NCREN gives our state a real competitive advantage, not only providing the daily bandwidth needs to almost all of our key community anchor institutions but also giving our private service providers the ability to invest into dark fiber assets so they cost-effectively expand their network reach. This progressive business model is and will continue to help grow bandwidth availability with stable pricing for the foreseeable future.

But, as we all know, we can’t be satisfied with yesterday’s successes. We need to continue to innovate and invest into the future; to push the threshold of network innovation and close our state’s connectivity gap. MCNC, along with many of you here today, have been key associates in helping to position our state as a model for how public/private partnerships can work across all sectors and to better shape our broadband ecosystem of the future.

Now, it’s up to us as to where we can go from here.

Once again, on behalf of everyone at MCNC, I’m happy to be here with you today.