Leadership N.C. announces class
by Mark Essig, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
published October 3, 2007 12:15 am

Leadership North Carolina has named 53 leading citizens — including two from Western North Carolina
—as members of its 2007-08 class.

The area members are Hunter Goosmann, general manager of Asheville’s ERC Broadband for the
Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas, and Cindy Messer of Waynesville, the
western regional manager for the state Department of Commerce.

The Leadership North Carolina class will meet six times over seven months around the state to discuss
economic development, education, environment, government and health and human services.

To learn more, visit www.leadershipnc.org.

source: Citizen-Times.com 

Netriplex broadband pipeline to connect the 2 cities

by Dale Neal, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
published September 23, 2007 12:15 am

ASHEVILLE — Cars rush along the interstates between Asheville and Atlanta in a matter of hours, but
that’s a snail’s pace in the information economy when data is needed in less than a second.
Now, thanks to a huge new fiber-optic pipeline, Atlanta will be only an instant away from Asheville.
Netriplex Corp., in cooperation with AT&T, announced last week that the company will bring the largest
broadband line ever into the Asheville area, building its own dedicated line to downtown Atlanta by the
end of the year.
The project will benefit not only Netriplex, but also other local businesses that may want to pay to use the
lightning-quick connection.
“Getting this size of pipe into our Asheville data center makes it equal in connectivity to our locations in
Boston and Atlanta,” said Jonathan Hoppe, the company’s chief technology officer.
After only about a year operating in Biltmore Park, Netriplex had outgrown its existing broadband
connection.
The firm needed more firepower to move backup data needed by its largest clients, Hoppe said.
The company provides remote data backup, anti-spam technology and other services, with data centers in
Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle and London.
Hoppe said the new line would be an OC-192 optical fiber, which can carry up to 10 gigabits per second
of data. “That’s like downloading 10 copies of the Library of Congress, or the equal of 7,000 T1 lines
with the capacity to serve 25,000 average businesses,” he said.
Business leaders have long been anticipating the technological link for the area.
“This is big,” said Jack Cecil, president of Biltmore Farms, the developer of Biltmore Park, Netriplex’s
Asheville home. “We are going to literally be in downtown Atlanta without 3 1/2 hours of travel. We’ve
been working on that for years.”
“Netriplex will now be able to bring world-class high reliability and high-security data services to
companies in the Asheville area,” Cecil added.
While Netriplex will use the dedicated line to meet the needs of its clients around the world, the company
could work with other Asheville firms to share some of the capacity, Hoppe said. “There are local
Internet service providers who may need good bandwidth, and they can buy that through us, but we’re
not going to be trying to sell T1 lines to local businesses,” he said.
Hunter Goosmann, general manager of the ERC Broadband in downtown Asheville, is happy to see more
Internet access for local businesses. As a nonprofit, the ERC Broadband has an OC-48 fiber backbone,
which can feed about 2.5 gigabytes per second into schools, governments, hospitals, universities and
smaller businesses. “Netriplex’s success underscores the region’s technology growth and complements
ERC Broadbrand’s efforts significantly,” he said.
With the increased connections, the key for the region will be using that Internet capacity to its fullest,
Goosmann said.
“We need to make sure the greatest uses aren’t just for gaming or for watching movies,” he said. “We
need to apply it in a business sense and educational sense, developing significantly more opportunities.”

source: CITIZEN-TIMES.com

Big Easy technology hits WNC

By This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
August 30, 2007 12:15 am

After 43 years in New Orleans, John Monroe had been thinking of moving out of the Big Easy for higher ground and a climate with four seasons. Two years ago,
Hurricane Katrina helped Monroe make up his mind.
“We only lost 12 shingles on our home,” Monroe said. But he’d seen the quality of life declining in his city long before the hurricane hit.
With his networking company, Baseline Technologies, Monroe really could work from anywhere in the country, but what sold him on Western North Carolina
was the Education Research Consortium Broadband, a nonprofit fiber-optic network based out of the Federal Building in Asheville.
“The ERC has a highly secure facility where the power doesn’t go down, and the staff has been wonderful,” Monroe said.
While his business partner, Jimmy McDaniel, remained in New Orleans, Monroe opened a virtual office out of his new home in Hendersonville. With an Internet
connection to hook into the ERC broadband and his clients’ networks, he can set up shop anywhere, including the Black Bear Coffee Co. in downtown
Hendersonville, where he often meets new clients.
Monroe, 56, is now moving many of his New Orleans clients’ main and backup servers to Asheville, well away from another direct hit by a hurricane on the Gulf
Coast.
The bulk of his business remains in New Orleans, where Baseline specializes in computer networks for legal firms and medical offices. Many of his clients were
able to get their e-mail the day after Katrina and stayed in business.
Since moving to Hendersonville, Monroe has expanded his business locally. At the end of the year, he and his partner expect to hire their first full-time employee.
As a nonprofit, ERC Broadband wants to benefit small companies like Baseline starting out in the area, according to Hunter Goosmann, the network’s general
manager.
“This is a large part of our technical economic development model,” he said. “We’re going to work with these companies, help them get started and grow. We
expect them to outgrow us.”
Although he and his wife, Karen, are firmly settled now in a new house in Laurel Park, Monroe said he’s still invested in New Orleans and its recovery.
“It’s going to be a decade before New Orleans will come back. It can still be a great city, but it won’t be the same,” he said.