OC FOCUS Project increasing Internet speed

Tired of waiting at your computer to surf the internet? Well, waiting times have been dramatically reduced in the Golden Corner of South Carolina thanks to the Oconee County FOCUS (Fiber Optics Creating Unified Solutions) Project, explains director Mike Powell. “We have placed 252 miles of fiber into the ground and 140 anchors of connectivity; those were put around Emergency Management and the School District. The School District was our primary focus of the grant, the kids basically had a 10 meg connection to every school and then a 10 meg burstable to 100 for internet and that is just not enough especially with online testing and everything that they have to do. So what we have done is taken them to 10 gigs and 1.5 gigs of internet expandable up to 3 gigs. The secondary was Emergency Management; we were in desperate need to have a network dedicated to the fire stations, emergency rescue squads and other points. So what we tried to do is provide a continuous network for them to be able to call back and forth and have internet. A lot of these fire stations didn’t even have internet.” For their efforts in 2014, Oconee County’s Broadband FOCUS Project was named a Community Broadband Project of the Year, continues Powell. “We were recognized by our peers and voted on by our peers for this award. We went through an audit and different phases to verify that we did things correctly. So the NTIA, which was the group that issued the money also sent verification, so we had to submit to the Feds how we did it, what we did and how we spent the money. It is a nationally recognized award that is only given out yearly, so we were last year’s winner and we are very thankful for that.” The county has seven approved last mile Internet Service Providers connected to the network, and has ample fiber to continue to attract potential future last mile providers. To learn more about improving your internet seeds in Oconee County, visit www.ocfocus.net.