The Lyndon B. Johnson Job Corps should have much better Internet access by next month, and if it works out, the rest of the county could follow suit.
Most of Macon County suffers from poor Internet connectivity due to a lack of infrastructure. It’s difficult to run fiber lines through such mountainous topography, and setting up a reliable wireless signal is challenging because of heavy tree cover. Situated out in the woods on Wayah Road on the way to Nantahala, the Job Corps has some of the worst trouble in the county with getting good internet, a problem compounded by the need for connectivity in its educational setting.
“If the staff and students are all on it at once, it gets
very slow,” said center director Arthur Phalo. “It’s always been very poor around here.”
However, a solution to the problem may lie with a point-to-point setup, which relies on wireless radios relaying signals from areas with stronger broadband to those where the signal is weaker. In a project performed in conjunction with Skyrunner in Asheville, the Job Corps will benefit from six wireless radio points that should provide them with between 200 megabits per second and one gigabyte per second of data by April 13. It took three years to organize all the necessary permissions and find points of clear view to place radios, but soon the Job Corps will finally have the broadband it needs for students to do their coursework online as necessary. Providing access for radio receivers is also a very cost-efficient way for the county to address the issue.
“It didn’t cost the county anything except a little space to put the radio equipment on the fifth floor [of the courthouse],” said Tommy Jenkins, chairman of the Macon County Economic Development Commission.
Though it took time to get the project off of the ground, the point-to-point method holds promise for the future of broadband expansion in Macon County. It requires a relatively low amount of infrastructural investment and offers some flexibility in where it can be installed. Andy Goethals, who has consulted on the project, said if the county government shows enough interest in the prospect, this level of Internet could become a reality in all the far reaches of Macon County.
“There are a lot of moving parts and it won’t happen for the entire community right away,” Goethals said. “But because of the way it’s set up, this could eventually help all of Macon County.”