Columbus County To Get Wireless Broadband

The News Reporter Columbus County is about to become a more desirable place to live and more attractive to business, thanks to businessman Tim Blackmon, who is making a large investment in building a wireless high-speed Internet network. The network will serve rural customers who currently don’t have broadband access and compete with services such as Sprint DSL and Time Warner Roadrunner for individual and business accounts. Sounds good to me. And the best part is that it's a local company owned by a local man without Government assitance. Dial-up is currently the only practical option available for 44 percent of rural residents in the county. The service is slow and makes it frustrating to access videos and music on the Web. Most computer users who can afford it prefer broadband Internet service, which costs at least $35 per month. Broadband is essential for e-commerce and other business activities. Currently, Sprint, Bell South, Time Warner Cable, Star Telephone and two satellite companies make broadband service available to 56 percent of county residents. The telephone companies combined have 56 percent coverage and Time Warner has 19 percent coverage over some of the same areas with its cable modem service. That leaves nearly half of the potential market wide open for Blackmon’s wireless network. “The rural market is what we want,” Blackmon said. That rural market includes me. Within 30 days, Weblink Wireless will erect a 900 megahertz transmission tower near Courthouse Square in Whiteville. The signal is expected to reach customers in a six and one-half-mile radius. It will take six antennae to cover the entire county but they won’t all go up at once. Blackmon has an ambitious but cautious plan for building the network. If the first Whiteville antenna tests go well, a second antenna will go up in 60 days in South Whiteville. The first antennae will just miss me, but that second should do the trick. Robert, this is what you've been asking for. I told you it was coming.