ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601220092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ABINGDON
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
... SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA gets its second "electronic village" in March, when Abingdon businesses and homes connect via computers and the Internet.
Lawyer Jack White wants it to prowl through law libraries all over the world while researching cases. Food City executive Robert Neeley and Main Street Books owner Gary Frank want to sell their products over it.
Others may use it to do their banking, order a library book or notify others across town of church, civic club or Scout meetings.
"It" is the Electronic Village of Abingdon, a spinoff of the much-publicized Blacksburg Electronic Village and potentially the first of many such on-line communities in Southwest Virginia.
In Blacksburg, residents and businesses got computer data links to one another and to the Internet for worldwide computer-based communications in late 1993. The project has been the only one of its kind, and involved the town, Virginia Tech with its existing computer expertise and equipment, and Bell Atlantic, the telephone company serving Montgomery County.
As in Blacksburg, the Abingdon project will see businesses and residents connected by computer. They will start learning how to use that connection March 20, when as many as 100 computers will be set up at about a dozen public facilities, such as Town Hall, the public library, local hospital and even the Food City supermarket and Highlands Union Bank.
For three months, Abingdon residents will have free access to those computers for everything from electronic mail to cruising the worldwide Internet with assistance from guides who have been there. Computer classes will be offered at area educational institutions, and less formal training at the library or through a network of volunteers.
All this started when Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, held a telecommunications conference here in July at Virginia Highlands Community College to gauge how much interest there was in local telephone access to the information superhighway. About 100 people were expected to show up, but the number was closer to 400.
A follow-up conference at Tech got Abingdon Vice Mayor French Moore excited about the potential. "He came back here and just mobilized the troops," White recalled.
A century ago, Moore said, towns found themselves bypassed if they were not near a railroad. Some 30 years ago, the same thing happened with interstate highways. "And so today, if you're not hooked to the network, you're going to be behind," he said. "It gives Abingdon a chance to be on the front end of the curve."
Boucher said students at the community college and Abingdon High School "will be able to view current weather maps from the National Weather Service. They can access fine art at the Louvre in Paris, and send e-mail to President Clinton - or, if they prefer, Senator Dole."
It was Boucher who arranged for Blacksburg Electronic Village staff members to make an analysis of the potential for a similar venture here.
"The Abingdon project will be truly state of the art," he said. "I fully anticipate that dozens of other 9th District localities will follow Abingdon's example this year and make this region the clear national leader in the rural use of computer-based communications technology."
Radford is also looking into starting an electronic community. City Council endorsed the idea earlier this month. Bristol has expressed interest in the concept. The Pulaski County School Board next month will look into the feasibility of linking with local business in a partnership to create a kind of electronic village there.
Abingdon people already were interested in the Internet. Virginia Highlands Community College, the Southwest Virginia Educational Center affiliated with the University of Virginia and the Washington County school system were already cruising the information superhighway. About 200 of the town's 7,200 residents had already signed on with Net Access Inc., a private Internet provider, for dial-up access a few months ago to a line extended from Johnson City, Tenn. "So it fell on very receptive ears," said White, the lawyer who is into computers and part of the local committee planning the venture.
Sprint United Telephone Co. will connect Town Hall, the library and hospital with a high-speed fiber-optic demonstration line which will be expanded after the three months to add other subscribers to the network. It will connect the other demonstration points with a digital signal faster than current connections, although not as fast as the fiber-optic connections will be.
Its investment represents a donation of some $25,000, but it also represents a potential new customer base for the telephone company.
For those first three months after March 20, Boucher said, potential users of the fiber-optic loop will be encouraged to seek connections for their offices or residences. After that, more fiber-optic line will be deployed to meet the demand and more subscribers will be added to the network.
"Our eventual goal is for the fiber-optic network to serve the entire community, and for connections to be made available at an affordable cost to all residents and businesses within the town," Boucher said.
For those first three months, Net Access will provide administrative support and maintenance of the local and worldwide connections at no charge. After that, Abingdon users will start paying a fee still to be determined. They have been paying about $20 a month for the local access line they have been using up to now.
The company is also bringing dial-up Internet access to Bristol, Wytheville, Marion and Galax, said company spokesman Mike Davis. "Our plans are to cover Southwest Virginia from Roanoke west," he said, and what happens in Abingdon can only promote those other ventures.
"I had spent very little time on the Internet until this local access," White said. "But the goal is to get a high-speed connection available to the entire town."
Such connections will mean computer users can get onto the information superhighway just by turning on their computers, without having to use a telephone modem and dial a computer line, which even the Blacksburg Electronic Village must do. "We're starting from a different plateau," White said. "That's going to be the difference here."
"There's so much information out there that's accessible now just by firing up your computer," said Gary Frank, the Abingdon bookstore owner.
"Main Street Books will have a home page pretty soon," he said, referring to the equivalent of a stopping point on the information superhighway to tell about services or products available. "We were just going to do it, but now it makes sense to do it through this service."
A number of Abingdon businesses already have their own home pages, including The Tavern, a restaurant that publishes its menu on line.
Robert L. Neeley, senior finance and administration vice president for Food City, which operates 63 supermarkets in Southwest Virginia, eastern Tennessee and eastern Kentucky, also hopes to take electronic orders like Wade's Supermarket stores are doing in the New River Valley.
"We've recognized that as the coming thing for some time," he said. "I look at this as a very positive approach to the future."
The Abingdon Convention & Visitors Bureau has had a home page since October, one month after learning about its possibilities at one of Boucher's 9th District teleconferences.
"Our problem at that point was it was a long-distance telephone call," said Steve Galyean, the bureau's director of tourism. Net Access solved that problem with its local line, and used the bureau's home page as a demonstration to sell other customers on the idea.
The bureau's home page can jump to other such pages for the county school system, Emory & Henry College, McKinney Builders, Highlands Union Bank, and The Tavern. A computer user scanning the bureau's home page can click on one of those names and be on its home page.
Galyean said the Electronic Village of Abingdon could increase participation in local government, offering such things as immediate access to the minutes of Town Council meetings. "That's just one aspect of it," he said. "That's what can be done locally, but you can literally go worldwide."
Even Abingdon residents without their own computers will not be denied Internet access. "People will be able to come here and have access," Galyean said. "If they are not able to afford their own hookup at home, or even a computer ... they will have access through several public access points."
Moore, the vice mayor, is a dentist and looks forward to being able to connect with state and national dental associations in Richmond and Chicago, exchange information with other offices in town, take continuing education opportunities on the Internet, and send claims directly to insurance companies without waiting for the mail.
It took only a month for a home page for Abingdon's Convention & Visitors Bureau to go from having the idea to its realization, "and now we're talking about an electronic village," Moore said. "It's almost scary."
THE ELECTRONIC VILLAGE OF ABINGDON
What it is:
A project, similiar to the Blacksburg Electronic Village, to make Internet access widely available to citizens.
How it works:
As many as 100 computers will be set up at a dozen public locations. For three months, Abingdon citizens will have free Internet access.
Meanwhile, a high-speed fiber-optic line will be laid to connect those who subscribe to the network.
When it starts:
March 20.
Who's behind it:
The local telephone company, Sprint United Telephone; Net Access, a private Internet access provider; the town, and Rep. Rick Boucher. The Blacksburg Electronic Village also offered advice.
Who's next:
Radford, Bristol and Pulaski County are exploring similiar ventures.
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