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Metrostat, ERC to provide broadband connection
By Justin Goble
A local communications company is hoping to support technological growth among small businesses in the area as well as expand its coverage area by teaming up with a non-profit broadband provider.
Sylva’s Metrostat Technologies has joined with the Education and Research Consortium Broadband to provide businesses throughout Jackson County with direct access to a high-speed fiber-optic network.
Metrostat Technologies employees Clint King, left, and John McCardle bore a hole in the pavement to lay fiber-optic cable in Sylva. Metrostat recently entered into a partnership with the Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas to offer affordable access to fiber-optic networks to businesses in Sylva and across the region.
Eleventh District Congressman Charles Taylor was instrumental in forming the organization in 1997. The goal of the ERC is to promote economic development in Western N orth Carolina by replacing jobs in the dwindling textile market with those in technological fields.
As a part of that effort, Taylor secured $4.3 million to construct a regional fiber-optic network.
The ERC currently connects parts of WNC, South Carolina and Georgia.
In the local partnership, ERC provides the fiber-optic network while Metrostat offers connectivity to the network.
Metrostat owners John and Robin Kevlin said that the partnership allows for local businesses to connect with ERC’s fiber-optic network at a lower cost.
“It’s impractical for businesses to hook to the ERC backbone,” John Kevlin said, estimating the cost for a direct connection to be around $50,000.
“We’re giving businesses better technology, and that will make them want to settle here,” said Robin Kevlin. “No town in WNC has the fiber-optic network we have.”
While the ERC does not offer phone services, connection to their network allows Metrostat to be a competitor in that market.
“Metrostat is a ‘real deal’ phone company,” John Kevlin said. “Businesses can buy phone service from us.”
He also said that the partnership allows Metrostat to offer service to cities outside of Jackson County, such as Asheville, which in turn allows those connected to the network to produce more informational content than they consume.
One of the most important technologies the partnership allows the company to offer is voice over Internet protocol service, which allows users to use the same fiber-optic network for both their phones and their computers.
“Markets are driving towards voice-over-IP in a big way,” he said. “It’s very cost-effective, because you can get rid of your entire phone network.”
Hunter Goosman, ERC director of network operations, said that allowing businesses access to this technology helps all of WNC.
“We’re bringing greater competitiveness and we’re meeting our mandate of expanding the technological capabilities of the region,” Goosman said. “Sylva will benefit, and the region as a whole will benefit. By connecting small networks in the region, we’re creating a larger regional network,”
Goosman also said that this partnership allows people and businesses the bandwidth to do Web hosting in the county, instead of having their sites hosted elsewhere.
“Local businesses can have servers here,” Goosman said. “That allows for immediate job growth in the technological area.”
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