Cooperative Living July 2018 - 41

BrightIdeas | by Amy C. Balfour, Contributing Writer
Public-private project brings high-speed
internet service to Rockbridge area
H
igh-speed internet service is rapidly
becoming a necessity. Across Virginia,
communities without it are turning
their attention on how to get it.
This is the story of how one area in the state
is addressing its need for high-speed internet.
Rockbridge Area Network Authority
(RANA) is a public-access fiber network
capable of transmitting at gigabit speeds
across its service area of Rockbridge County
and the cities of Lexington and Buena Vista.
Nestled in the Shenandoah Valley between
the Allegheny and Blue Ridge mountains, these
are communities characterized by hills, horses
and small-town hospitality. High-speed
internet has only recently joined the line-up.
The nerve system for RANA is the Richard
A. Peterson (RAP) data center, which sits on a
patch of high ground on the Washington & Lee
University (W&L) back campus.
As chief technology officer at Washington
& Lee University, David Saacke knows that
bandwidth and speed are critical components
for success at a modern university, particularly
in STEM-related fields. " We now have the
opportunity to move massive amounts of data
very quickly, in a way that we couldn't before.
We can build environments for [professors
and students] to share research data with
other universities, " says Saacke. " It puts W&L
on the digital map with urban areas. "
In other words, W&L may sit in a rural
county - where the occasional bear strolls
across campus - but students and faculty
interact with the world as if it's at the
doorstep. Bandwidth is not an issue with
RANA. There's adequate bandwidth for videoconferencing,
including video conversations
across the U.S. using multiple live feeds.
RANA is also affordable for residential
consumers. " If you boiled RANA's mission
down, it was to provide accessible and
affordable broadband to the residents of
Rockbridge, " says Saacke, who is also a RANA
board member.
This mission kick-started in 2008 when
W&L pursued a public-private venture
with Lexington, Rockbridge County, Buena
Vista, and the local internet service provider
Rockbridge Global Village, which led to the
creation of RANA and the RAP data center.
Both became operational and available to the
public in 2013.
www.co-opliving.com
The data center, built to the standards of a
Tier 2 data facility, can meet the disaster-recovery
needs of small and mid-sized businesses. Files
housed digitally at an office, for example, can
be duplicated and preserved in digital cabinets
in a climate-controlled area inside RAP. The
data center can also play an integral role in
business-continuity planning. If disaster
strikes one office, systems will keep operating
across other locations.
Law firms and small businesses could
similarly benefit. " If a law firm in D.C. had a
branch here ... instead of buying local
[internet] they could have [the branch] on
the exact same network, " explains Saacke,
and it " would appear as if people were in the
office right next door. "
But ease of access and a competitive
monthly rate aren't the only economic
benefits if you're thinking about starting a
business here. " You're going to have cheaper
real estate, cheaper labor, cheaper everything, "
explains Saacke. " So if you're looking to
expand, and you have an affection for
Lexington, you know you're going to get a
good deal compared to an urban area. "
Small-business owners can also take
advantage of the cost benefits associated with
nearly unlimited broadband. A coffee shop,
for example, can juggle simultaneous internet
activities - from customers watching videos
and checking text messages to point-of-sale
transactions with credit cards - without
maxing out their service. The tank won't
Nikkie Leech of the WellPet Group, a
veterinary practice where reliability and
unlimited broadband are of vital
importance to a pet's medical treatment.
Realizing the impact of RANA, Mike Keyser,
the CEO of BARC Electric Cooperative,
headquartered in nearby Millboro, saw an
opportunity. BARC could deliver high-speed and
affordable internet services to its rural customers
by leveraging the RANA network to build
farther out and connect to underserved areas.
And that is what's happening today. BARC
is expanding its own fiber network off of RANA
to serve its customer-owners in the county.
The ultimate goal, says Keyser, is for business
owners and residents to enjoy the quality of
life associated with rural living while also
enjoying the accoutrements of urban life.
For business owners, what are some of the
benefits of using the RANA fiber network?
Steven Wray, chief information officer at
Cornerstone Bank in Lexington, likes how
efficiently the network connects the bank's
downtown headquarters with its regional
branch. RANA also increases the speed of
customer transactions. " It's fast, " says Wray.
" And there wasn't 'fast' or 'affordable' here
until there was RANA. "
run dry.
" We haven't had drops ... like what we were
experiencing previously, " says Nikkie Leech,
business manager at the WellPet Group, a
growing veterinary practice on the outskirts
of downtown Lexington where reliability and
unlimited broadband are of vital importance to
a pet's medical treatment. " Everything runs off
the internet. Everything transfers. X-rays. The
software itself. If anything's down -
processing credit cards - nothing can be
done. We can't look at medical records.
We can't function. "
Another selling point? Reliability. " We have
a new fiber infrastructure that's in the ground, "
says Scott Robertson, RANA's executive
director. " Once it's in the ground and once it's
lit, that fiber infrastructure has very few things
that can bring it down. "
In 2017, BARC began providing fiber-tothe-home
access through BARC Connects, a
wholly owned subsidiary of BARC Electric
Cooperative. BARC has incorporated the
RANA network into its larger plans to make
fiber-to-the-home available to every single
home and business in Rockbridge County.
The long-term plan is to build fiber-to-thehome
access to all BARC Electric customers
in its five-county region. 
July 2018 | Cooperative Living | 39
AMY C. BALFOUR PHOTO
http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living July 2018

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