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by Kevin Kanarek More on MAIN:

"Our focus is on community, not access to the Web. We routinely refer individuals to commercial ISPs if we cannot meet their needs."-- efore founding the Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN) in 1995, Wally Bowen was director of the Citizens for Media Literacy, an organization devoted to civic participation via access to the media environment. Prior to that, he was news director at UNC Asheville and a board member of "The Mountain Air Network," a public radio station. His wide definition of "media literacy" includes being able to participate in the creation of the media environment, as well as having access to information and the tools to interpret it. Western North Carolina is known for its mountains, the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, and the surrounding national parks. But Bowen also sees the isolation, unemployment, and illiteracy that have affected this region for generations. There was no national railroad link here until the 1880s, and no commercial east-west highway route until 1968. More recently, this region has been largely bypassed by the North Carolina Information Highway initiative, and by the Sunbelt economic boom which has affected the Piedmont area, which includes Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Tripod: Where have you seen the greatest impact of community networking in this region? Wally Bowen: Well there's the recent example of Graham county, which is Joyce Kilmer National Forest country. They've never had local dial-up to the Net. There's a Tri-County community college but it's really had no presence in Graham, only this tiny building. They renovated it and we put a server in there, so now Tri-County is using it as training classroom, and it's a local high-speed link to the college and the rest of the Net. We installed a wireless link between the server and the public library to get a network connection for the training classroom and the public access terminals in the library, which saves on local dial-up costs. Now we're trying to build on our experience in wireless to create a public bandwidth co-op, with wireless links to county government and the school system. Those agencies have never had Net access and now they have T1 performance over wireless. Tripod: Part of the situation that MAIN is trying to address is the patchwork nature of the phone network there. Wireless seems like a way to avoid that entirely, jumping straight to the Information Age scenario where everyone has a satellite dish attached to their modem... Bowen: Well, wireless is not delivered via satellite. This wireless is low frequency radio with range of under three miles. You would think that line-of-sight wireless would not work in a mountainous environment. But the terrain has caused public agencies to be clustered in the valleys around the town center, within the three-mile range. Tripod: Are the phone companies upset that they're left out of the picture? Bowen: No, Bell South and GTE are important partners for us. The community network becomes a catalyst for bringing connectivity to these remote areas that the phone companies could not service on their own. Tripod: What have been some of the other challenges or obstacles, social as well as technical? Bowen: We've been so busy laying down the infrastructure that there hasn't been the time to implement all of the programs we're hoping to do. There may be a lack of technical resources but a tradition of volunteerism makes up for it. For example, Paul Lundquist [a blacksmith who is a member of both Celo Community and MAIN] did a heroic job in Burnsville over in Yancey county. He brought his blacksmithing skills to the task, and saved us alot of money in wiring an old Bank building from the 1920s and installing a server. He even forged the modem rack out of iron. Tripod: Are the different cultures — locals, later arrivals, etc. — really equally represented on the Net? There was a couple in the front row, must have been in their 60s, looking like Ma and Pa Kettle from out in the holler. -- Bowen: Well, we've been pleasantly surprised. I've often used the metaphor of a stone in a pond to explain how we do outreach and training. At the center are the most active users and people volunteering to help create this thing. And the infrastructure has to exist for people to even see a point in getting online. But you get wider and wider rings, like the people who have a computer but haven't gone online yet, or don't have a computer but their son or daughter just moved to Chapel Hill and now they're thinking about getting one. At the last outreach meeting in Yancey county, there was a couple in the front row — must have been in their 70s — wearing overalls, looking like Ma and Pa Kettle from out in the holler. But they were sitting right up in the front row. I don't know if they went on to get an account. So far there are about 30 public access terminals in libraries and remote community centers, used mainly by people who don't otherwise have access to an Internet account. Tripod: What kind of funding do you have, aside from individual subscriptions to MAIN? Bowen: In 1995 we were awarded Telecommunications Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP) grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce. We're seeking a second grant to cover more counties and to implement a media and democracy project. Tripod: As BBSs and community networks in general evolve into ISPs, has there been resistance from people who think ISPs are by definition free market entities? The philosophy of 'let the market determine the shape of things' is very prevalent around here.-- Bowen: The philosophy of "let the market determine the shape of things" is strong around here. But there's also a tradition of public markets, quilting bees, and energy co-ops. There's been some opposition from for-profit ISPs, but our focus is on community, not generic access to the Web. We routinely refer individuals to commercial ISPs if we cannot meet their needs, like unlimited access and professionally staffed help desks. As a non-profit community network relying heavily on volunteers, MAIN cannot meet these needs. When we started deploying the network last spring, 7 of our 14 counties could not access the Internet with a local phone call. These include 4 of the poorest and most isolated counties in the state. To frame this as an issue of a community network versus Internet service provider would be short-sighted. Through our community and economic development efforts we are working to strengthen the overall market.