Newaygo County Advanced Technology Services (NCATS) was formed in 1995 as the technology department of the Newaygo County Regional Educational Service Agency (NC RESA). NCATS coordinates many technology services throughout the county and has become a resource to our county agencies. Along with school technology services, NCATS operates an Educational Telecommunications Network, which includes fiber optic networks and wireless communication towers. This network serves public schools, students, educational professionals, and educational partners within the Newaygo County school districts.

NCATS is known as an Internet Service Provider for much of our community. In 1995, Internet access was available via dial-up and Newaygo County residents incurred long distance charges to use it, hindering its adoption. NCATS responded to this need by introducing the first local dial-up Internet to Newaygo County. This initial dial-up service had a very humble origin, but quickly grew to a peak in the early 2000's. Broadband began to emerge in some of our cities in the form of DSL and later Cable. However, within the coming years it became evident that broadband deployment from the national providers had generally stopped at city limits. Rural homes were left without recourse.

NCATS had begun to receive pressure from the community to help foster the growth of broadband services. In 2003, we used proceeds collected and saved from our matured dial-up service to form Newaygo County's first local broadband service using wireless technology. Like dial-up, our first broadband network had humble roots. Thanks to a continual re-investment of subscriber revenue, our humble service grew county wide. Today, NCATS operates hundreds of service sites and continues to expand its broadband service focusing on unserved and underserved areas.

We continues to exercise every resource at our disposal to reach those without service or choice. We continue to invest the total of our revenue to continually improve our existing service, to expand these services to others, and to provide resources and service to our community.