Benefits for Businesses

Capacity, speed, reliability, universal access and cost effectiveness guide the development of the Rockbridge Area Network. The active fiber-rich design of RANA provides ample capacity for virtually any needed bandwidth. The standard residential and business connections will be 100 megabits, using a dedicated connection between the customer and the neighborhood fiber switch. Unlike earlier passive optical networks (PON) that typically share 1 Gigabit of bandwidth among 32 users for an average capacity of 30 megabits, customers using services on the RANA network will not have to share bandwidth with neighbors. This means the network will be able to provide guaranteed quality of service for high bandwidth services like HD TV, and the standard 100 megabit connection is capable of delivering four or five HD channels simultaneously to a household -- something no PON is able to do.

The new partnerships forming as a result of this stimulus funding promise to spur both stabilization and expansion of the Rockbridge area economy. Using estimates recommended by the Council of Economic Advisors, we expect to see some 109 new jobs created, including 70 direct and indirect and 36 induced job years. In an area with a total population of around 35,000, this is no small matter. When compared with larger and more heavily populated areas, this project will address a major proportion of the communications needs of the area, and facilitate the connection of all of the dots on our community maps.