Jessica: So all in that blue thread-looking thing?
Josh Bailey: Yes.
Jessica: It's so thin; you can't see it with the naked eye.
Bailey: This has two coatings still on it, so you can see it.
This one feeds this block right here.
Jessica: Josh Bailey is the lead technician for the DiamondNet company; he
and his team are installing a fiber optics system that's bringing
state-of-the-art telecommunications to Sallisaw.
Bailey: Each color feeds a particular house.
Jessica: Providing connectivity that assistant city manager,
Keith Skelton says was way over due.
Keith Skelton: Sallisaw lagged so far behind in the technology race that
our services were very inadequate.
If you look at our system today, some of our system today and the services we
offer is a whole lot better than cities three, four, five times our size.
We offer television services including high definition television,
video on demand.
We also offer high speed Internet; we have tiers of one, two, four, and ten
megabyte tiers that our customers can subscribe to.
Jessica: Of approximately 8500 residents, about 1200 are using DiamondNet
services.
Bill Baker: For the citizens, I mean, it just opens up all kinds of
opportunities for them, as far as quality of life in the community.
Jessica: Bill Baker is the Sallisaw city manager.
Baker: Our community has invested seven million dollars in upgrading our
technology, telecommunication technology, so that the
residents of Sallisaw have the cutting edge as far as any kind of
telecommunications.
You'll find none any better, anywhere, in the United States.
Jessica: And it doesn't hurt Sallisaw's economic development either.
Baker: Companies are looking for areas that have this type of
communications.
There's businesses now that it doesn't matter where they locate as long
as they have that technology.
Jessica: Brian Whitacre is with the agricultural economy department at
Oklahoma State University and says rural areas are behind in new technology,
all because they don't have the infrastructure.
Brian Whitacre: They say, for every mile of cable that I lay, how many
people are going to be able to subscribe to that system?
And there's a significant problem with that for rural areas.
What Sallisaw has done is really very progressive looking.
They're one of only probably 1 to 2 hundred systems like this across
the entire nation.
Jessica: Giving Sallisaw a breakthrough, in technology and in life.