“Good things come to those who wait,” so the proverb goes.

For many citizens and businesses in the New River Valley who don’t have access to robust broadband services, the wait just may be getting shorter. Congressman Rick Boucher announced last week $9.2 million from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to the Floyd-headquartered Citizens Telephone Cooperative to add 186 miles of fiber optic cable in the those portions of the NRV now unserved or underserved by other providers. For critical institutions such as schools, hospitals, and other public safety organizations, the new fiber may establish much needed connectivity and even important redundancy.

It’s important to note, however, that while this is a major announcement of good news, fiber will not be coming immediately to your front door. The grant funds so-called “middle mile” connectivity, an important step in bringing additional fiber into our area, but hooking us up will necessitate yet another step, the “last mile.” You will still need an Internet Service Provider to bring this expanded bandwidth into your home office or into your local business.

The “wait” for a last mile hookup, though, shouldn’t be as long as the wait has been for this project to take shape and get funded. Discussions about a “New River Valley Telecommunications Plan” began in the summer of 2003. The gestation period to merge the Plan with appropriate funding agencies and achieving matching funds was particularly long and complex.

There was a significant period when many of us thought we’d continue to be the “hole in the doughnut” between the initiatives taking place in both far Southwest Virginia and in Southside. Floyd County was the only eligible New River county for Tobacco funds. Many funding agencies may have assumed the large shadows cast by our two universities took care of our connectivity needs, consequently, that our need was not as great as other regions, or that we didn’t have the available matching funds needed.

Early in this gestation period it was hard for many of us to imagine the bandwidth needs that some proponents understood were just on the horizon. Frankly, some others didn’t want to appear to threaten the existing telecoms who where providing service.

“Long-suffering”  though is a term best describing members of the regional Telecommunications Committee, who put often forward excellent proposals that fell on rocky funding soil. Committee members understood that access to our villages, business parks, schools, and public service providers were critical to strategic initiatives of the region—including slowing the outmigration of the brightest and best students, reducing the isolation of many areas, enhancing the interoperability of first responders, improving educational performance, and furthering economic and business opportunities.

Unfortunately, “patience” is often not a solution to urgent need (!), and the region may have suffered from lost opportunities not coming our way due to the dearth in broadband investment. That discussion, thankfully, is now academic, and we have the extraordinary opportunity to build on the public/private investment made.

Let’s encourage our private ISP companies to take advantage of the opportunities wrought by the public/private middle mile investment. As end-users, we need expanded use of the Internet and its successors. Let’s encourage training, greater access to hardware and on-line opportunities, and let’s be in the vanguard of applications and uses of technology.

Thanks to those who had the forethought to encourage an emerging, technologically adept New River Valley in those early meetings in 2003.  Special thanks should go to those who maintained a vision for a more connected New River Valley: Bill Yerrick, Karen Jackson, Basil Edwards, Jim Sandidge, Jean Plymale, Brenda van Gelder, Seth Perry, Dave Rundgren, John Nichols, Kevin Byrd, Steve Jones, Monta Elkins, Carl Epley, Jan Gilbertson, Pete Huber, Ken Vittum, Chris McClarney, Carol Smith, Aric Bopp, Tony Cox, Brian Hamilton, Jan Gilbertson, Richard Shumaker, Scott Shepherd, William Sawyer, Dennie Templeton, Lydeana Martin, Holly Lesko, John VanHemert, and Charles Stewart. Your public service is greatly appreciated.

John B. White is the Town of Pulaski’s Economic Development Director.