Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 9, 1995 TAG: 9502100071
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A small investment to equip industrial parks with Internet access could pay off big in terms of attracting new industry, director of the Blacksburg Electronic Village said Wednesday.
Andrew Cohill - who heads up the interactive electronic network that links Virginia Tech, homes, schools and businesses in Blacksburg - said companies are looking for communications connections that industrial parks don't offer. Specifically, he said, companies want access to the Internet, the worldwide computer network used by researchers, businesses, governments and the public.
Localities could offer $5 a month Internet access to companies in their industrial parks for an investment of less than $10,000 per park, Cohill suggested. But Western Virginia must act within the next year to 18 months to provide that access if it wants to get a jump on other areas of the country, he said.
Cohill was one of four panelists in the second of a series of dialogues on issues affecting the region sponsored by the New Century Council, a citizens group representing the New River and Roanoke valleys and Alleghany Highlands area. Wednesday's meeting at Virginia Tech's Corporate Research Center dealt with the potential impact of fiber-optics technology on the region's economy.
The discussion focused on how the technology can be applied for education and economic development.
To attract more companies, the region needs to keep doing more of what it's already doing, said William Neely, president of Force Inc., a maker of fiber-optics networking devices in Christiansburg. Neely, who joined Force just a year ago, said he was speaking from the perspective of an outsider.
The region has "incredibly competent and well-trained" people for the business Force is in, as well as a good work ethic and low labor costs, Neely said. The quality of life is an asset in attracting good employees from outside the area, he said.
Efforts under way in school systems to integrate the new communications technology into teaching could attract companies to the area, Neely said.
Neely and other panelists talked about how new computer technology will completely change the way students learn. Rather than being tied to a lecture hall, students will have the information they need when they need it on the Internet.
The technology will allow students in some school systems to take courses through two-way video that would otherwise be unavailable to them. A group called the New Century Communications Network already is at work linking all the schools in the region with the fiber optics necessary to provide live video services.
Cohill said the National Science Foundation has provided Tech with money to teach public schoolteachers how to use the new technology, and classes already are under way.
Richard Claus, director of the Center for Innovative Technology's fiber-optics research center at Tech, said he suspects schools systems around the country in regions noted for electronics research already are heavily into electronically equipping of their classrooms. "My guess is we have to do quite a lot to stay as far behind as we are now," he said.
Someone asked the panelists if there was such a thing as having too much information and not enough time to think. A business can never have too much information, Cohill said. As for an individual, all he has to do it turn off the computer or the television set, he said.
by CNB