North Carolina leadership in interactive video

North Carolina’s First Interactive Video to Universities: 1984
MCNC (known then as the Microelectronic Center of North Carolina) began a network known as CONCERT to carry courses in the sciences out from UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State, Duke and Wake Forest to other universities and employees at high-tech companies. The CONCERT name was changed to NCREN in 1992. And with the advent of the N.C. Information Highway, all of its constituent institutions were added to this network. University courses were carried over both CONCERT and NCREN to spread the offering of scarce courses to universities, institutions and organizations that were otherwise unable to provide a very diverse set of courses. For example, Appalachian State University and the UNC-Asheville could not offer a diverse enough set of courses for majoring in something like, say, the German language. Resources from Appalachian State University and UNC-Asheville banded together to enable a German degree by using NCREN.

Originally, CONCERT used microwave towers and then moved predominantly to leased, fiber-based infrastructure and services for NCREN. The MCNC network was full motion, two-way interactive (and high quality) video for distance education, video conferencing and telemedicine. It also carried very high-speed data for research purposes among the university campuses in North Carolina.

North Carolina’s First Interactive Video Over Fiber to Schools: 1994
It took almost 10 years from the first interactive video to spread across North Carolina – a full motion, two-way interactive video at 45 Mb, delivered over an ATM Sonet fiber network here in North Carolina (piloted in Wilmington and Charlotte as Vision Carolina), and then named the N.C. Information Highway. It first offered services in August 1994 to deliver courses to high schools and community colleges. That network was built by telecommunication carriers in North Carolina – then known as Sprint, BellSouth and GTE – as well as telephone cooperatives and independent telephone companies. These carriers are known today as Embarq, AT&T and Verizon. The state paid for video services in the same way it would pay for telephone services (it did not own this network; the private sector and nonprofit telephone cooperatives did).

Initially, the network carried video to more than 70 high schools, enabling them to offer many science and technology courses that would not otherwise be available. Other courses were subsequently developed so that schools could receive language courses and advanced placement (AP) courses that were not taught in these schools because of lack of certified teachers. Shortly thereafter, 21 of North Carolina’s 50 community colleges also joined the network. Again, scarce resources were utilized across the system to spread educational content from one corner of the state to another.

The N.C. General Assembly was a leader and pioneer in funding the N.C. Information Highway. And private sector companies – be they wireline carriers, independent wireline carriers or telephone cooperatives – joined in this public-private partnership to deploy this first fiber-switched broadband ATM network in the world.

And here’s the kicker – it was the largest network of its kind in the world at that time. Right here in North Carolina. Can you believe that?

Such an awful shame that now the state and nation have fallen so far behind…