Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 6, 1995 TAG: 9505080013
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: THOMAS FARRAGHER Knight-Ridder Tribune
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
On the corner table of a rustic tavern here, there are chilly mugs of beer, plates of dictionary-thick sandwiches - and a gee-whiz surprise. The appetizer, served in bytes, is electronic.
A Pentium-chip computer at the Main Street ``cyberbar'' offers a free spin on the Internet. Hit a button and scan real-time transcripts from Judge Lance Ito's courtroom in Los Angeles. Or check out the gossip from your favorite soap opera's entry on the World Wide Web. Or click on the latest sound clip from the town's hottest new rock group, the Visible Shivers.
``People from around here are really using it as a function of their daily lives now,'' said Bill Ellenbogen, the proprietor of Bogen's bar and grill. ``It's not just a toy anymore.''
With nearly a third of the town's businesses and more than 13,000 of its 36,000 residents already on its computer network, Blacksburg, tucked into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is perhaps America's most wired municipality.
Surprisingly, the lesson being learned in this leafy college town - a test bed for telecommunications experts nationwide studying practical applications of Internet technology - is as old as the signature line from L. Frank Baum's well-worn classic, ``The Wizard of Oz.''
There's no place like home.
``What we've found out is that nobody cares about the vast resources of the Internet. I mean just nobody cares,'' said Andrew M. Cohill, director of the system known as the Blacksburg Electronic Village and a professor at Virginia Tech, the town's dominant presence and home to 23,000 students.
``So here, they do Blacksburg stuff. They're shopping with local merchants, buying food or ordering flowers. They're sending e-mail to friends and family and acquaintances. They're finding out about how to get that permit from Town Hall.''
While many cities and towns across the United States have established an online presence by posting records and services electronically, Blacksburg's system stands out.
A cooperative effort of the town, the university and the regional telephone company, it is remarkable for its sheer reach, its subsidized service ($8.60 a month) that connects customers for about one-third of normal rates, and its implications for customers elsewhere.
``The electronic village has proven to be and will continue to be a test bed of services that will be demanded by customers in the future,'' said John W. Knapp Jr., a spokesman for Bell Atlantic, which has poured about $7 million into the project. He added, ``We're seeing how a community ties itself together and how it seeks to connect to the rest of the world.''
If the future is now in Blacksburg, here's what it looks like.
Students jockey for space in several local apartment complexes where Bell Atlantic has installed high-density cable that essentially hot-wires more than 700 users to the Internet at speeds 100 times faster than more conventional modems.
There is a waiting list for the premier Ethernet slots, and project coordinators say that 30 to 50 new subscribers sign up for village membership every week.
At the local library, an electronic reference librarian is on duty to answer questions that range from how to find reviews of movies available at a local video store to how to compile research on Greek mythology. More than 800 people have taken computer classes since the library joined the electronic village 15 months ago.
There is an irony to this pell-mell technology race.
``We can't tell you what's on the shelves in our other branch libraries because we're not yet automated,'' said Steve Helm, the library's computer specialist. ``But we can sure tell you about titles in Germany.''
On a recent evening, two of the library's four public terminals were in use. A high school senior sat cheerily at one, pecking out an instantaneous e-mail chat with a boyfriend in New York. ``Oh, yes! That sounds great!'' was one typical exchange.
Local restaurants and taverns offer online coupons, which network users can download, print out and redeem. A local charter pilot offers her services on a home page - an electronic bulletin board - complete with a color photograph of her and her airplane and a clickable map that gives estimates for destinations from here to St. Louis.
``The Internet is such a growing thing. It's a thing that's unstoppable,'' said Lisa deVries, general manager of the charter. ``Definitely people are learning about us, but we have not had any business through it yet. We're willing to give it a year.''
The most frequently told anecdote about the wonders of the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV) is an order collected by the local online grocery store chain, Wade's, which uses it to sell flowers. A resident of Kuwait, surfing the Internet from there, found the store's home page and used it to ship daisies to Pennsylvania.
But David McIntyre, Wade's data processing manager, said the store's day-to-day experience is less flashy.
``I'd be lucky to get one order in a week,'' he said. ``This is a way to get your feet wet with a new technology. The capabilities are there. The willingness of the people to use it isn't.''
McIntyre noted, however, that when the store recently announced plans for online shopping, to be available this summer, the community response was overwhelming.
``Hey, we think this is a great idea,'' he said. ``Rip it off if you can.''
Richard R. Civille, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Civic Networking, an independent research group on information technologies, called BEV a promising project that has, so far, delivered. But, he said, it has yet to fully prove itself.
``Now they've got all this stuff out there,'' Civille said. ``But we don't know how people are using that stuff. We feel they have more work to do.''
But for Cohill, who is boyishly enthusiastic about the project, and other regular users, the success of their electronic village is told not in grandiose terms, but in the simplest of stories.
The local regional hospital reports that its home page - complete with doctor biographies, fitness tips and notices of health-care seminars - has been used 1,482 times since Feb. 1.
Jason Gibbs, an 18-year-old senior at Blacksburg High School, uses the network to put the school's newspaper online and to list information about clubs, sports schedules and departments at the school.
For David Capwell, 28, a bank branch manager, the electronic village means keeping in regular touch with a buddy in Iran, reviewing local restaurant menus for the specials, or reading an electronic version of his former hometown newspaper in Norfolk.
``It's all at your fingertips and the great thing is that everyone around here is tuned in,'' said Capwell.
Within a year, town residents will be able to pay their taxes and their utility bills via the network.
``My favorite story is what we've come to call the `Presby-net' lady,'' Cohill said, telling the story of an elderly and active member of the Presbyterian Church who grew frantic until BEV fixed a software problem that had prohibited her from contacting church members across the country.
``It was important for her to keep up,'' Cohill said. ``To me that's the best success story. To me it's much more interesting than even groceries online or the Internet bar because it means that we have actually gotten into segments of the community that are outside the sort of geeky teen-ager, technocrat type of personality that always gets profiled.
``People are starting to take us for granted and when they lose access it's a big deal. It's important to them.''
IF YOU'RE INTERESTED: The Blacksburg Electronic Village e-mail address is bev.office(at)bev.net. The village information servers may be reached via gopher at gopher.bev.net and via the World Wide Web at http://www.bev.net/
by CNB