Scott Chidester, Director of Engineering for Kinex Telecom, could be seen recently testing the configuration for Mecklenburg County School systems new fiber connectivity. Kinex was selected to provide wide-area network connectivity for all of the county's schools, as well as a large Internet connection to Equinix in Ashburn, Virginia, making it one of the fastest and most responsive connections in the area. Kinex competed for and was selected over other local and national providers, based upon the engineering and reliability of the solution.

We engineered the solution using MBC's fiber network, giving each school 100 megabit of wide area network connectivity, said Chidester. We basically provided them with a solution that now makes each school appear to be in the same building when it comes to computer connectivity. The implications of this solution will help the school to ultimately realize savings and technologies that we have yet to discover. The new system will allow for virtual classrooms between the schools and allow for a more enhanced schedule and class selection. Engineering this system on the MBC network will also allow for great connectivity to the other schools on the same fiber which will expand the virtual classroom capabilities thorughout the region.

We are excited about adding another large client to the MBC network, said Jim Garrett of Kinex. We actually provide services for one college and seven school systems and all of them will be able to utilize the newest technologies to advance our kids' educations. We are also excited about our new digital telephone switch and its capability to provide high definition digital phone service and video conferencing. We hope to make video phones and video conferencing an every day occurence in our community, said Garrett.