Screen shot of the new JobsRutherford website.

Savang Moua, broadband manager, climbs the tower in Ruth.

Foothills adds website, expands network

RUTHERFORDTON — A new jobs-related website and the expansion of an Internet service provider network were announced Monday by Foothills Connect Business and Technology Center.

The website, whose address is www.jobsrutherford.com, is an online link between employers and job seekers in the Rutherford County region. The site was created by Foothills Connect.

“Our most important bit of news is a new website that has been created with the help of Zurve Communications in Rutherfordton to help workers and employers in Rutherford County make a connection,” said Jim Brown, assistant to the executive director at Foothills Connect, during a press conference Monday morning.

“It allows employers to post jobs and it allows prospective employees to search for them and to create and post online resumes.

“And one of the neat things about it is so often people don’t want to pursue something because they might be in a job already, and they don’t want their current employer to know they are looking for something better. This allows both the employer and the job seeker to have control of their identity until either is ready to make it available to the other party.”

Only when a job is to be offered are the identities of the job seeker and the employer revealed, a news release about the website notes.

Brown said the site is user friendly.

“It is really a very simple site,” he said, “and it walks people through how they go about it, using a series of e-mails.

“And, obviously, with Rutherford County’s employment rate above 14 percent, anything that can help people find jobs and employers find the right people for their jobs is something that we certainly want to accomplish.

“We encourage everybody to go on the site and give it a whirl and see what it is all about. It’s very transparent in the sense that I think it is easy to use. The site itself steps you right through the process.”

Jobs are listed by category.

Also, Foothills Connections, the newly established Internet service provider established by Foothills Connect, has expanded its network to Spindale and Bostic.

“We are also really pleased to announce that we have expanded the number of transmitters we have available to provide Internet connections for people,” Brown said. “Most recently we have placed transmitters on water towers in Spindale and Bostic.”

Foothills now has transmitters on Harris Mountain, Tryon Peak, Mount Pisgah and Cherry Mountain, plus on water towers in Ruth, Harris, Spindale and Bostic.

The Spindale tower is next to Spencer Baptist Church, and the Bostic tower sits near East Middle School near downtown Bostic.

“Our service is a wireless service that works off of radio waves,” Brown said. “Anyone within the direct line of sight of those transmitters can get a service. We offer three levels of service, which are as fast or faster than other commercial vendors.”

The levels of connections are:

three MBS down and one MBS up, for $40 per month.

one MBS down and 512 kilobits up, for $30 per month.

Ten dollars of the $60 cost for the fastest connection will be set aside for a scholarship fund for students whose families cannot afford Internet access. Foothills will work with the school system to determine eligibility for this fund.

“The students would probably get something just a little slower than that, but it would still be four to five times faster than dial-up, and give them enough speed to do their homework,” Brown said.

Brown provided a perspective on those levels of service.

“When I was publisher at The Courier, we had married two Internet access services, and had five megabit download and a half megabit upload, and we were serving 20 people.

“The thing that is important to know about our service is that each connection is a separate channel. That means, unlike DSL, you are not sharing that pipe, if you will, with anybody. It’s yours and yours alone. That, I think, is a tremendous asset to our system.”

“We got into this process,” Brown said, “because of the lack of broadband access to the rural areas of our county. It had become very clear over the last year and a half, two years, since the fiber optics has been installed, that the commercial vendors are not going to expand their networks. We tried to find Internet service providers who would come in and work with those fiber assets to provide access to the rural areas.”

Brown said providing the service became even more imperative because of an initiative of the Rutherford County Board of Education.

“We feel this is even more important now,” he said “because of the school board’s commitment to the 1 to 1 project, which will put laptops into the hands of students sixth grade and above. All the schools are wired with ultra-high-speed, and so much of the educational process, the learning process, is based on the Internet, being able to research, that so many of the children who live in the rural areas, and teachers as well, have to suffer with dial-up. It just makes it almost impossible to keep up with the other students who have broadband access at their homes.”

Brown cited business opportunities too.

“We think this is a vital service,” he said. “We’ve already connected people in the areas who have not had broadband before, and they are starting small businesses based on the Internet. The Internet offers a tremendous opportunity for education and for a diversified economy.”

“If people are interested in securing a high-speed, dependable connection to the Internet, we ask that they give us a call,” said Savang Moua, Foothills broadband manager. “I’ll visit their property to ensure that we can get them a signal and then install the service.”

Moua, brought up in Burke County, joined the Navy right after high school, and he spent 20 years learning telecommunications. He has managed major networks and fleets of networks.

“We were very happy he found us,” Brown said. “He is one of the beneficial connections that we have made as we expand the level of services that we provide.”

County Commission Chairman Brent Washburn attended the press conference. Foothills Connect Executive Director Tim Will thanked Washburn for coming up with the Internet initiative idea.

“All we did was find a technological way of making your idea happen,” Will said.

Contact Dale via e-mail at ldale@thedigitalcourier.com