As a founding board member of the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative (MBC) and a former network infrastructure consultant to the Southside Virginia Regional
Technology Consortium (SVRTC) located in Southern Virginia, I am thrilled that MBC will now offer new opportunities to rural communities and their school children.

In the mid 1990s, following the Telecommunication Deregulation Act, a team of school leaders first envisioned connecting 22 rural public school divisions so they could share Latin language and advanced Mathematics classes. I can remember going to a SVRTC regional school division leadership meeting back then where everyone in the room described the future and how they wanted video on demand and two-way video for their students.
As a young consultant and business owner of one of the first technology consulting firms in Southern Virginia called EdTech, I asked those school leaders to raise their hands if they wanted Internet, a requirement for video on demand and two-way video. With a room full of laughter, they all raised their hands. Every good consultant in those days knew that without Internet, two-way video and video on demand were not a reality and so my work was cut out for me and infrastructure was the first task. For many rural people in Virginia during those days, AOL’s 800 number was the only means for Internet. Can you imagine videoconferencing on an AOL 800 number? 
Many people do not know that Mr. David Hudgins and the Old Dominion Electric Coop (ODEC) led the creation of the MBC. Some ten years later they have brought nearly 800 miles of broadband to Southern Virginia as part of an economic transformation strategy.  To see this network expand and add almost 465 more miles of network infrastructure is truly amazing and I commend ODEC for enabling Mr. Hudgins to lead this effort for economic development in Virginia. With this new broadband, these students will connect to the modeling and simulation centers around the state and to the resources found at major NASA installations.  Furthermore, this network will allow for TelePresence, a new product by Cisco Systems, whereby the two-way videoconferencing experience is life size and life like (full immersion).

Less than a year ago, my team at Virginia Tech installed the first Cisco TelePresence system in Southern Virginia in Riverstone Technology Park and with this system, people from that rural region can now connect with researchers and scientists anywhere in the world. Without the MBC network, this project would not have been possible.  The article presented by VirginiaBusiness.Com, and the MBC network described hereinto, will have a lasting impact on rural communities in the same fashion that the Telecommunication Deregulation Act did many years ago. These new tools of government will provide a competitive platform for rural communities that would otherwise be left behind.