Rutherford County is pleased to announce that on June 30, 2009 the Public Safety Fiber Network will be completed, thanks to a $1.4 million dollar grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation.   A ground breaking ceremony was held on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at the Hickory Nut Gorge EMS station to celebrate this accomplishment.

 

The Golden LEAF grant was based on an application submitted by Foothills Connect and has accomplished a couple of key items. $300,000 has been used to complete school laterals as part of the previous Golden LEAF grant awarded to Rutherford County Schools, and the remaining $1.14 million has been used to extend fiber from the schools to fire departments in order to create an emergency services fiber network. This project will result in 38 additional miles of fiber along with 17 fire departments and 2 EMS stations being connected.

 

With an emergency services network the county will also have the ability to communicate more efficiently throughout the rural areas of the county. The 911 center will have the ability to track all emergency response vehicles for both safety and public responsiveness. The network could also have future uses such as better traffic monitoring and stronger security for high crime areas via video technology. GIS services are also invaluable as part of the emergency services network, by allowing fire fighters, search and rescue teams, and chemical spills responders the ability to access maps of the surrounding areas to survey passage ways. 

  

Assisting on this project were also several key entities. ONUG Communications is a communications engineering firm out of Raleigh, North Carolina. They have designed the entire network and worked alongside Rutherford County as the project manager. Better Cable Systems out of Roxboro, North Carolina was award the construction bid and has hired almost all local contractors to get the fiber on poles and in the ground. Finally, Pangaea, a non-profit fiber network provider will maintain and operate the public safety network. This will be an extension of more than one hundred twenty miles of their current fiber that serves the major arteries of Rutherford and Polk Counties in western North Carolina.

 

Also in 2007, Isothermal Planning and Development Commission requested a grant from the Appalachian Region Commission to enhance the emergency services network wirelessly. Rutherford County was awarded a $178,920 grant to see this wireless network implemented. Once the fiber is in place, this grant will be used to broaden the network via wireless units to create a backup for the emergency services fiber network.   This grant is to be completed by September 2009. It will include at least 9 towers and access points at various locations across the county.