...bringing Internet Access to Lincoln County, Montana
People often ask us...
How does a community get together and pull this off ?
"It's the same mind set that appears when there is a crisis; people don't worry about the structure and who's job it is; they just roll up their sleeves... and DO IT !"
The Lincoln County Technology Group, a grassroots, public/private partnership forms in early 1994. They routinely meet during lunch hours to brainstorm on how to bring Internet connectivity to our remote region, and to plan what might be done after grant money seems unattainable.
hammer out the finances...Greta Chapman, Director of Lincoln County Libraries and Bill Bischoff, the Deputy County Clerk, worked with others in LCTG to come up with projections of how KooteNet might fly...
. . .LCTG meets again and again during lunchtime meetings till it's time for action . . .
then, you find a place to put it...
volunteers scrounge studs, paneling, shelving, a door . . . and proceed to build "the computer equipment cage"
punch a hole through the library's basement wall for the 56kbs Internet line as well as to bring in the phone connections for the customers' dial-in lines.
fix a place for the phone equipment to be installed ...
Volunteers bring a plywood base and a County employee mounts it as a panel to house the incoming phone lines for KooteNet's modem bank.