North Carolina

Brightspeed has been awarded more than $213 million in local, state, and federal grants to deploy fiber broadband networks in 12 states.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, in collaboration with the Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, recently hosted a webinar series titled the Power of Partnership: State Strategies for Digital and Educational Equity.

North Carolina has about 400,000 homes and businesses either not served by high-speed Internet or with woefully inadequate service. North Carolina, like every state and U.S. territory, is in the throes of getting a clearer understanding—than perhaps ever before—of just how wide their digital divides are. They have organized state broadband offices, generally within technology agencies, to count, quantify and analyze the depth of the problem.

The N.C. Department of Information Technology’s (NCDIT) Division of Broadband and Digital Equity announced an additional $112 million in Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) program projects to connect 25,903 households and businesses in 19 counties to high-speed internet.

The North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s (NCDIT) Division of Broadband and Digital Equity announced an additional $112 million in Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) program projects to connect 25,903 households and businesses in 19 counties to high-speed internet. These projects will be funded by more than $61 million from the federal American Rescue Plan awarded by NCDIT, more than $25 million from counties and nearly $26 million from selected broadband providers:

The North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s Division of Broadband and Digital Equity (NCDIT) has announced that FOCUS Broadband is a recipient of two Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) program awards. The $5.4 million in awarded CAB funding will allow FOCUS Broadband to extend their fiber optic network in both Chowan and Perquimans counties, bringing high-speed internet to an additional 800 rural homes and businesses.

To bridge the digital divide, the North Carolina Department of Information Technology (NCDIT) will award Kinetic $4.4 million to bring high-speed fiber internet to unserved areas in two counties. This grant will enable Kinetic to significantly expand its fiber-optic network in Cabarrus and Union counties by the end of 2026, bringing gigabit internet speeds to 1,392 previously unserved locations. Kinetic will invest $1.9 million of private capital in this fiber-to-the-home project and cover any cost overruns.

Spectrum announced the launch of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to more than 2,000 homes and small businesses in Rutherford County (NC). Spectrum’s newly constructed fiber-optic network buildout in Rutherford County is part of the company’s approximately $5 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund-related investment in unserved rural communities, partly offset by $1.2 billion in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) RDOF auction. The company’s RDOF expansion will provide broadband access to 1.3 million customer locations across 24 states in the coming years.

Across North Carolina, 63 community service, nonprofit, higher education and regional organizations will get $30 million in Digital Champion grants to help North Carolinians access and use high-speed internet.