ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 18, 1994                   TAG: 9402190006
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HIGH-TECH HOPES

IF MENTION of the Wireless Valley brings on heebie-jeebies and flashbacks of downed power lines, it is time to get past the pain and move on. The ice is gone (almost). The power is on everywhere (almost). And the news from Wireless Valley is good. (And, thank goodness, it doesn't have anything to do with power lines. Quite the contrary.)

If your job isn't connected with wireless communication technology in any way, you probably are unaware of the Wireless Valley. But if you live in Blacksburg, Roanoke or Lynchburg, you live in it. Well, almost.

The Wireless Valley refers to this corridor, which is already a world center for wireless technologies: cellular phones, wireless computer networks, satellite communications, that sort of thing. If this is not widely known, and the name not widely recognized, they stand to be, given enough time.

The Wireless Valley already is growing jobs in engineering, design and research in this high-tech field - not huge numbers of jobs, to be sure, but that could follow.

If the market takes off in, say, gallium arsenide chips - the potential successor to the silicon chip - Roanoke's ITT Gallium Arsenide Technology Center is in a good position to boom. It already is one of the premier makers in the world. Manufacturing jobs in this field take skill and intelligence; they will pay well. And growth in the industry will spur further growth, attracting to the region some of the vendors that serve it and the clients it serves, and possibly the vendors and clients of those vendors and clients.

One reason the foundation for this high-tech industry is being laid in this region is the Center for Wireless Telecommunications at Virginia Tech, one of the state Center for Innovative Technology's newest development centers. Its job is to get advanced technology from the lab into the marketplace, where it can benefit society and generate jobs and profits.

Every project is a joint project tackled by Tech's School of Engineering and School of Business. This two-pronged approach, designed to get new ventures set up in business and engineer solutions to technology problems of established companies, is meeting with success. The good news from Wireless Valley is that the telecommunications center attracted $2.6 million in funding for four new research projects - in its first two months.

The better news, perhaps, is that among these is a $1.8 million contract with the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency, formerly the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Much wireless technology has been developed for military use. Finding commercial uses will ease the post-Cold War industrial conversion, help Virginia sorely needs.

And meanwhile, of course, Western Virginia's post-manufacturing conversion to the information age could also use the help. 


 by CNB