In the late 1990s With rural economies in Southern Virginia suffering major losses in furniture manufacturing, textiles, manufacturing, and tobacco production in the late 1990s, regional business leaders realized that the only way to stabilize the regional economy was to embrace a new way of thinking. The need for broadband services in the traditional economic development model had rapidly transitioned from a “nice to have” to a “must have it and more of it,” and the region’s existing telecommunications infrastructure was woefully inadequate to meet the needs of the business community. While Southern Virginia had low tax rates, available work force, transportation infrastructure, and substantial electrical power grids, the existing broadband infrastructure and lack of competitive access was a substantial roadblock in attracting new companies to the region. Business leaders, in collaboration with telecom experts, developed a blueprint for an advanced open-access fiber-optic networ...
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