YOUNG HARRIS— North Georgia Network Cooperative (NGN) has been awarded more than $33 million in federal stimulus funds to construct an ultra-high speed fiber optic network throughout northeast Georgia. NGN is a new nonprofit cooperative organized by county development authorities, North Georgia College and State University, Blue Ridge Mountain EMC, and Habersham EMC to improve services available to business and residential consumers throughout the region.

Expected to be completed over the next two years, this regional fiber optic network will traverse a 260-mile corridor through several rural north Georgia mountain communities. The announcement that a $33 million stimulus grant was awarded to North Georgia Network (NGN) was made during an unprecedented visit from U.S Vice-President Joe Biden to North Georgia on Thursday, December 17. This project was enabled through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will support $2 billion worth of similar project announcements over the next 75 days, $182 million of that in 18 broadband projects across 17 states.

The project will have the potential to serve more than 9,000 businesses, 42,000 households and 367 anchor institutions traversing twelve (12) North Georgia counties. The network will directly pass some 245 county and city government facilities, schools, post-secondary higher education institutions, and hospitals.

The project’s focus is to stimulate and support a new technology-enabled economy. By improving local broadband access, the rural communities now relying on tourism and lower-skilled jobs can support digital age businesses and attract higher quality jobs.

A new non-profit cooperative, NGN plans to build 135 miles of new fiber optics and connect existing fiber spans through this grant along with $6.3 million in private and community-based commitments. Local funding is provided from the four participating counties of Dawson, Lumpkin, White and Union, North Georgia College and State University, Habersham EMC and Blue Ridge Mountain EMC.

Discussing the announcement of the grant award, Blue Ridge Mountain EMC’s General Manger, Joe Satterfield, said, “This presents an extraordinary opportunity for the people of North Georgia and the region as a whole. The NGN positions us to compete for new economic development prospects that we never before could have attracted, will create new jobs, and allow us to provide our communities with a broader spectrum of advanced services. We can envision new data centers, telemedicine specialties, and other clean, IT-oriented opportunities becoming a reality. Blue Ridge Mountain EMC members will benefit from improved reliability of our existing broadband services, and will enjoy more competitive pricing for these services. Additionally, NGN will enable us to provide a more comprehensive level of support for our electric distribution system, creating added stability and security of our grid. We are very pleased to be a key partner helping drive the NGN project forward.”

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Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation is a member-owned electric cooperative headquartered in Young Harris, Georgia, serving just over 48,500 customers in Cherokee and Clay Counties in Western North Carolina, and Towns, Union and Fannin Counties in Northeast Georgia. Organized locally in 1937, BRMEMC has invested well over $100 million in physical infrastructure in its mission to provide reliable electric and broadband services to its members where those services would not otherwise have been available.