The Bell Atlantic Tech Center is a great place for people in the community to be enlightened on some of the world's new technology. A woman named Florence Rice came up with the idea of the tech center. She felt it was time that her people, in the community, needed to know more about what is going on around them, since it will eventually have a big effect on their world. "The Tech center was a place intended to educate black people and is currently serving it's purpose," says Adreane Myers, a computer scientist involved with the tech center.

The idea for the tech center came about because of the relationship of two things that depend on each other: the telephone and the computer. The telephone has to be used in order for the computer to be able to hook up to the internet. According to Myers, since the computer and the telephone have to be used together why not educate the community about both things. This how the idea of a tech-center was born.

Adreane Myers has been with Bell Atlantic for eleven years, so when Rice came up with the idea for the tech they just jelled together. They also hired another computer major by the name of Leesa Faust who is excellent with computers. Together they host the tech center.

The Bell Atlantic Tech Center has many communication tools made by Omega, which is the first video conferencing center in the world . The soft ware they use is Intel processor . They have a private equipment room which controls the whole place. A program called T1, which is 1.544 megabytes per second, is use to make their programs faster. The people who came up with the model were very wise because they set u p a section for people with all forms of handicaps. They also have an up-to-the-minute weather center which gives them an accurate forecast of the weather all the time.

A specific part of the place which I found interesting was the section which shows the difference between the fiber optic wire and the copper wire. The fiber optic wire is the same as cable wire but faster. The copper wire is more expensive because it has to be mined. The fiber optic cable can be used for both the telephone and the computer. At the Bell Atlantic Tech Center, they have a big fiber optic wall that shows all of their connections to phone lines all over the world. Their hours are from nine to five, Mondays through Fridays. On Tuesdays they have free seminars and on Wednesday they have open house. Other than that, you can arrange to have a visit and tour to the tech center. And it's always a nice way to learn something new or different.