As Rocky Mount, North Carolina, prepares for new fiber internet network, rural areas face their own struggles with broadband access

A new effort to install a fiber network could soon bring high speed broadband throughout Rocky Mount (NC). But some living in rural areas outside the city limits have concerns that the digital divide in their neighborhoods will keep growing. On May 20, city leaders announced telecommunications company Metronet would be spending $20 million to lay a fiber network throughout the city limits, bringing high speed internet as soon as next spring. While Rocky Mount celebrated, neighboring communities said they're worried about being left behind. However, Nash County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robbie Davis said that Nash County (NC) has been working with a Wilmington-based company called CloudWyze to install a county-wide network. Davis said the county had invested $2 million already in the hopes of bringing 90% of residents online by 2025. Neighboring Edgecombe County has been trying to do the same. County Manager Eric Evans said that four companies were bidding for grant money from the state to set up a network there as of late May. But even with $1 million of the county’s federal American Rescue Plan Act funds earmarked for broadband expansion, they won’t be able to bring service to everyone. “Because it’s just so costly to do that, it would probably cost at least $10 million or more in grant funds to do that,” Evans said. “But it certainly will go a long way to help cover the areas that are currently unserved.”