• Create a competitive marketplace.
• Encourage private investment.
• Reduce data and telecom costs for all.
• Reduce overbuilding and redundant facilities.
• Create local markets for new services.

• LENOWISCO, Inc. the non-for-profit organization managed by the same board of directors and staff as the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission.
• Scott County Telephone Cooperative. SCTC has made available a pair of fibers on its existing 70 fiber optic route serving all Scott County communities. It is anticipated that Scott Telecom and Electronics, Scott County Long Distance and MountaiNet, three subsidiaries of SCTC will wish to provide services on this network (cable TV, long distance and Internet service). Additionally, SCTC will provide customer service, billing services, and plant maintenance.
• Sunset Enterprises though Paul Elswick is our technical consultant and will coordinate vendors, contractors and network designers, marketing and network administration.
• World Wide Packets. WWP is our technical partner and offers the most cost effective solution to bring broadband services to the end subscriber via optical networks. The company designs, anufactures and sells optical network equipment, which provides a solution to deliver massive bandwidth over the last mile of a fiber optic network.
• Other Partners. We stand ready to discuss any partnership arrangement with any other owner of existing fiber networks currently constructed in the region. We would propose that similar arrangements be made whereby those carriers allow use of existing fibers on their existing etworks.

• Fiber allows networks to operate over longer distances than copper - up to 100 kilometers with single mode cable.
• Fiber is immune to "electrical noise", so it works well in electrically noisy environment.
• Fiber doesn't radiate any signals and is therefore not "tap-able", so it works well for high-security networks.
• Fiber is the cable of choice for new networks (either in existing or new buildings)-it copes better with high-speed technologies, such as Gigabit Ethernet
• Fiber optic cables are much thinner and lighter than copper, so they are generally easier to install and maintain.

This program will promote the long-term economic vitality of the community by ensuring that local businesses and other organizations have high bandwidth telecommunications services at affordable prices. Access to fiber is ALREADY as fundamental as water and sewer for economic competitiveness. An economic analysis will soon be underway which will provide estimates of economic improvements that are probable with the proposed investment in this project.

In a similar manner, road management in communities had to be taken over by the public sector in the early part of the 20th century to ensure that all members of the community had adequate access to paved roads. In the 1930s and 1940s, electric services and telephone services had to be either subsidized by the government (REA, TVA) or by the community, in the form of telephone and electric co-ops.

The LENOWISCO broadband project, in a similar manner, would extend a truly open network throughout southwest Virginia, but the services to be provided would be dictated by the demands from business, private individuals or institutions, and private companies would provide those services. The fiber network would merely be an Erie Canal, or an Interstate highway. Others would provide the services on that network or the "boats" on the canal.

If enough customers could be signed up to justify a commodity Internet connection, then the Scott County portion of the existing network could offer connectivity within a very short time frame.

LENOWISCO is currently discussing the possibilities with these sources, as well as others. It is envisioned the project will ultimately include funding from a variety of sources-local, state, federal, and even private.

In rural areas, the sparse settlement pattern drives per-user costs too high to make projects feasible. In southwest Virginia, for instance, thousands of households still do not have safe, sanitary public drinking water, let alone public sewer. Earlier, the Rural Electrification program brought federally subsidized loans to rural co-ops to extend electric power to all. Without such programs, it would have never been cost-effective for a private, investor-owned utility to completely serve the rural regions. In the same manner, it will be virtually impossible for investor-owned telecommunications companies to bring the level of services and high bandwidth to rural America.

Without the services to be provided through the LENOWISCO project, our region could never compete with more prosperous urban growth areas for additional private investment and job opportunities.

• Our labor force: how many truly trained, and capable potential employees could be provided for a particular project?
• Technical support from education: how capable are our public school systems, and institutions of higher education in serving the training needs of such companies?
• Quality of Life: do we have the community services, cultural options, and ancillary services necessary to make this region a good place to live and work for those who may not be natives of the region?
• Locations: do we have ample physical spaces-developed sites, buildings, etc.-to be competitive?

Those are just a few of the other issues that must be factored in. Broadband is no panacea to success, but it is an essential ingredient.

However, if we are successful in our goal to build a "state of the art" network, we will receive the attention of the national press, and with that our marketing efforts can be enhanced.

Existing broadband service offerings include T1 (1.544 MB/sec.) T3 (45 MB/sec.) and OC3 (155 MB/sec.) Annual prices for these services from Network Virginia currently are $12,000, $59,244 and $146,676 respectfully.

We have three large penal institutions in the region, two state super-maximum security prisons, and a federal high and minimum-security facility. With such issues as video arraignment, plus a large number of daily telecommunications needs, these institutions would be likely customers of the network. Similarly, our colleges, school systems and other government agencies would have similar needs. At the present time, the services that are available have distinct bandwidth or transmission rate limitations, and/or are comparatively expensive. We would propose that our network provide connectivity to all of these facilities. With all area educational facilities networked together, the method of delivery of educational services could be totally changed.

In addition to the entertainment value and quality of life improvements that access to information and the Internet provides, this network is essentially a "producers" network. Traditional telecommunications networks have focused exclusively on the consumer network, in which users merely consume information, not produce content or services. LENOWISCO's concept is focused on the idea that every consumer has the potential to become a producer of information services on the commodity Internet. Blacksburg has numerous entrepreneurs offering their services and products worldwide. A presentation regarding this concept can be found at http://www.ecorridors.vt.edu/research/papers/pdf/producers-photos.pdf

With the potential to establish cottage industries, we need to develop a culture of technology-driven entrepreneurship, catering to technology-savvy entrepreneurs who would enjoy a rural lifestyle and the amenities that go with that lifestyle.

Also, economic development is never local, but always regional. Companies invest in regions, not counties. And, "regional" does not always cleanly fall into line with political subdivision boundaries. It means thinking in a new orbit, unconstrained by conventional wisdom. LENOWISCO's very genesis was based on regionalism, and innovation. In the same way those early southwest Virginia leaders came together to collectively address their economic challenges and opportunities in 1959, today's group of leaders in the LENOWISCO service area have a vision of what it will take to lead this region into the future.

Without apology, this approach is decidedly different. It does not conform to conventional theories about how telecommunications services should be deployed, or financed in the Commonwealth of Virginia. But again, a conventional approach would not be feasible in most of rural Virginia. A comedian one noted that government usually operated under a basic rule that stated, "Nothing new and innovative should ever be tried for the first time." LENOWISCO strongly feels the Virginia Tobacco Commission, and many other key funding allies, are not content to wait out the conventional and easy answers to the complex economic challenges southwest Virginia faces. This project is certainly new, and innovative, and it deserves the chance to be tried for that first time. If we do nothing new and different, the economic future for the coming generations in the burley tobacco area of southwestern Virginia will be decidedly bleak. We believe otherwise--that southwestern Virginians deserve the same chance at an economic future as any people in the nation.