More than 300 people including dignitaries, business leaders and community members throughout North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia gathered Friday at Harrah¹s Cherokee Hotel to celebrate the connection of the Tri-State Southern Appalachian region with major metropolitan areas through a high-speed fiber optic network.

The new technology will facilitate access to improved and competitive services in the rural Tri-State area and will allow businesses, schools and healthcare facilities to use high capacity communication services including IPTV (Internet Protocol TV), movie downloading, medical imaging, real-time distance learning and video security.

Drake Software, BalsamWest FiberNet, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians and Southwestern Community College, hosted the event and collaborated to bring the project to fruition.

Phil Drake of Drake Software and Principal Chief Michell Hicks of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians founded BalsamWest in 2003 as an independent, non-profit broadband player serving the needs of the Tri-State Region.

Representatives from these groups as well as state legislators and other leaders spoke about the significance of the fiber optic network to the region's education and economic prosperity.

"We are here to celebrate the culmination of hard work and partnerships," said Brandon Stephens of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and chairman of the board of BalsamWest.

Stephens introduced Dr. Cecil Groves, the president of Southwestern Community College, who he called 'the visionary' of the project. Groves has been a key advocate of the BalsamWest venture.

Grove called the project, which took seven years to complete, a model of what can be achieved with planning, patience and perseverance.

He commented that when the venture was first discussed, people said such an undertaking would be too difficult and expensive to achieve on such rugged terrain.

"Well, we're here today to tell you: it was done," Groves said. "The highway is here." Grove added that a local firm, utilizing local labor and local funding built the network, which includes over 300 miles of optic fiber.

Grove acknowledged the funding efforts of Drake Enterprises and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians that made the accomplishment possible and helped Western North Carolina avoid being the last place to benefit from technological innovation.

He said that without access to this technology our children's education would be compromised.

Grove said the quality of our public schools is "critical to our quality of life in the region." "If you're going to prosper and be competitive you have to be connected."

Phil Drake of Drake enterprises recognized David Hubbs and Tim Hubbs, also of Drake as the driving force behind the venture and thanked the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians. "This has been a great project," Drake said.
"We are proud to be partners with the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians."

Drake said it is not just an education project, but a business and economic project as well.

"Western North Carolina does not end in Asheville anymore," Drake said.
"This is going to be a region that will be second to none in e-commerce and e-education."

Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians Michell Hicks expressed his appreciation to state legislators Sen. John Snow (D-Cherokee) and Rep. Phil Haire (D-Sylva) for their hard work in pushing initiatives to improve the economic well-being of the region.

Hicks said of Snow: "His heart is set on making Western North Carolina better."

Hicks commented that Haire has dedicated his recent years of public service to helping push technology to another level.

He emphasized the future opportunity that the high-speed network would provide our school systems and health systems.

"We will look back and say, 'we set the stage for a lot of people,' Hicks said. Others will use it as a model"

He reiterated Drakes' comment from earlier: "The North Carolina line does not end in Asheville," Hicks said.

Senator John Snow delivered an animated talk in which he prefaced each statement with the immortal words made famous by Martin Luther King Jr.

"I have a dream that Nantahala School will have an internet hook-up that will be equal to anything in downtown Atlanta," Snow said.

Snow said he envisioned adapting our workforce from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge-based economy. He said he had a dream that if college graduates in Cherokee or Graham County wanted to go back to school they could take courses on the internet from Tri-County Community College rather than having to drive to Western Carolina.

Snow said he had a dream that the high-speed network could provide good jobs for our children and grandchildren so they do not have to leave the region.

He said it boiled down to the acronym HOPE (helping other people everywhere). "It's what this is all about," Snow said. "There is nothing more important in this world than helping other people.

We need to make sure we have a place for our kids to grow up with a good education. And help the dream live on"

Representative Phil Haire said the importance of the project could be summed up in six words. "Our children, our future, our responsibility," Haire said.
"I pledge to you the commitment to get the money we need to connect every school in Western North Carolina to Balsam West Fibernet."

Mark Perkell, vice president of the Rural Telecommunications Congress said the need for high speed Internet services has been increasing in rural areas.

"A robust telecom broadband infrastructure has to be accessible and affordable," Perkell said. "That's one of the things I've seen here."

Perkell espoused the benefits of the fiber optic network, such as distance learning which features the ability to access classes, testing and books online; and Telemedicine and improved emergency response technologies.

"All of this is education bound, but also information bound," Perkell said.

Perkell said he had evaluated similar projects all over the country and this one is ³hands down the best I¹ve ever seen.²

"You have a truly innovative and unique project, Perkell said. A perfect example of a win-win. Everybody gains."

David Hubbs, manager of Dnet internet services and vice chairman of BalsamWest FiberNet said this event signifies that "Western North Carolina is on the global map for telecommunication infrastructure for anyone who needs it."

Keynote speaker Jo Anne Sanford, former chair of the N.C Utilities Commission, said of the achievement: "This is an absolutely remarkable thing you have done here. This is the model for what must happen in other places."

Macon County Schools Superintendent Dan Brigman, who attended the event, said this is just the beginning of the opportunities for our region.

"It's an exciting time," Brigman said. "I'm extremely excited about being a part of progress in our area."

Technology Director for Macon County Schools Tim Burrell said the increased bandwidth provides a number of advantages such as improving their ability to deliver applications and content between schools and the school system and saving them $7,000-$8,000 a month in transport costs.

Burrell added that it would also allow them to consolidate servers from 68 down to 10 and would offer advantages such as distance learning and staff development programs.

Stephens said that although they have the infrastructure in place there is still work that needs to be done, including training. He stressed that the collaborators on these and future projects continue to be open minded and listen to ideas. "If this idea had been ignored, we'd still be working on trying to catch up," Stephens said.

The high-speed fiber optic network at a glance

• the installation began in 2003 with the help of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Southwestern Community College in Webster and Drake Enterprises

• The approximately 300-mile ultra-high-speed fiber optic network delivers bandwidth of one gigabyte per second‹equivalent to nearly 13,000 simultaneous phone calls

• The pipeline originates in Sylva, N.C. and serves 45 school sites in the counties of Clay, Cherokee, Graham, Jackson, Macon and Swain, and the Qualla Boundary, Eastern Band of the Cherokee.

• BalsamWest and its local partners invested $14 million in the construction of the next generation fiber optic infrastructure. The backbone ring fiber forms the Western North Carolina Education Network (WNC-EdNET)

• Phase I connectivity of the WNC-EdNET is the first rollout of the network to bring next generation communication capabilities (e.g. voice, video, data and distance communications) to more than 70 school sites in the isolated Appalachian region.

• 130,000 residents live in the six-county region. 165,000 are being serviced.

• The fiber optic network has been built underground through the highest and most rugged terrain east of the Rocky Mountains for safety, security and aesthetics.

• By forming strategic local alliances, called "ASAP Partners," BalsamWest was able to save schools more than $60 million