North Carolina Coop Fibers Up Rural Counties and More Community Broadband Bits Podcast 188
North Carolina is increasingly split between those in urban areas, where some private sector providers are investing in next-generation gigabit networks, and rural areas where the big providers have no plans to invest in modern networks. But coming out of Wilkes County, a cooperative ISP called Wilkes Communications and River Street Networks is taking fiber where the big companies won't.\n\nThis week, Wilkes Communications and River Street Networks President & CEO Eric Cramer joins us for Community Broadband Bits episode 188 to discuss their approach, history, and plans for keeping rural communities well connected. They offer gigabit fiber, telephone, and cable television services.\n\nWilkes has already upgraded all of its original 8800 member-owners from copper to fiber, with some help from the broadband stimulus programs to reach the costliest areas. It is now expanding to nearby areas and has overbuilt the population center of the county after CenturyLink continued plugging away with last century solutions. \n\nCoops like Wilkes are especially important as North Carolina's Legislature has created barriers to prevent municipal networks like Wilson (coverage here) from serving their rural neighbors.\n\nThe transcript from this episode is available here.\n\nWe want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. \n\nThis show is 25 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. \n\nYou can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.\n\nThanks to Kathleen Martin for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Player vs. Player."