Up to 2003, the Tri-state Appalachian region had access to a rural network that was not designed for Mission Critical Application. A research study conducted by Southwestern Community College identified the need for a high speed dependable, Mission Critical network to support Hospitals, State and County Government, Data Centers and economical development, all of which had Mission Critical, or more
importantly, Life Threatening applications. BalsamWest constructed over 400 miles of underground fiber, in a ringed topology, designed to be available 99.999 percent of the time on the backbone fiber. That equates to 5.26 minutes of down time per year. The rural, mountainous area was so challenging to set up the infrastructure for such a network, that other providers could not or would not pursue the mission. They were instead building fiber around the mountains, at times increasing the distance between end points, inducing more latency, and often times, on network spurs that could not provide redundancy. At the same time, the area's growing industries and bandwidth-deprived population needed solutions for every-day and mission-critical connections. Could a 21st Century Fiber Network and supporting Carrier Grade infrastructure be built over the Appalachians to provide fast, high quality, reliable, mission critical networks solutions? To Drake Enterprises and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a world class fiber network was paramount to their business future. The two forged a partnership in 2003 to answer that question by founding BalsamWest – provider of the strongest fiber-optic broadband service available. "We are BalsamWest –the Hub of the fiber-optic broadband service in the Southeast." Today, BalsamWest continues to add infrastructure, bringing fiber-optic technology to Carriers, Data Centers and communities across the region. We only use superior, best-of-breed equipment and software, ensuring the highest possible quality. Our local staff and support teams are highly trained, technically skilled, and available 24/7/365. We offer superior services backed by quality that starts with the design of our network and continues through to our customer support. Always striving for the very best means we're keeping our vision on the future of the industry, ensuring economic growth for the region and our customers.
