Horner’s Rural Route By Bill Horner Rural Route is a Business North Carolina column authored by veteran journalist Bill Horner. He focuses on key issues in less populated parts of the state.
When it comes to broadband, the line of demarcation between North Carolina’s haves and have-nots is nearly always a function of population density and geography.
Money also helps, so let’s start there. Since former Gov. Roy Cooper allocated $10 million from 2018’s GREAT grant program, broadband-dedicated funding has increasingly flowed fast and free. With 91% of North Carolina’s households now connected to reliable high-speed internet, our state is among the leaders in closing the gap between the served and unserved. That is the result of an amalgamation of acronymic projects — BAND-NC, CAB, and BEAD, followed GREAT, with $987 million in ARPA funds as the primary war chest. It’s crowned by an additional $1.53 billion (from the federal 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) to ensure all residents can access reliable high-speed internet by 2030.
Gatekeepers and bean counters in Raleigh now mostly agree there’s enough money to make it happen.
In the rural parts of N.C., though, cashing in on grants and executing a plan are exercises riddled with complexity.
“You can’t just say, ‘Here’s a million dollars — turn on a router.’ Right?” says Nate Denny, the former deputy secretary for Broadband and Digital Opportunity in the N.C. Department of Information Technology. “These are two- to three-year construction projects. Someone’s got to dig a ditch. Someone’s got to hang a line on a pole.”
It doesn’t help that the BEAD grant, for example, has been described as “a Frankenstein monster” with an overwhelming application process that leaves too many applicants at the trough.
A utility, not a luxury
Most of us treat a high-speed connection like a birthright. We’ve also felt the pain and helplessness of disconnection. That’s an anguish that more than 380,000 N.C. households might like to experience, even just once. First, though, they need access.
We’re getting there. The pandemic and subsequent school shutdowns led to an embrace of a strong internet connection as a utility. Growing healthcare and workforce applications make broadband more than just a shopping or gaming or streaming cheat code.
Everything’s online, but not everyone. Dave Kaiser, the senior director of Policy, Advocacy and Innovation for the N.C. Rural Center, says in the state’s 78 rural counties, closing service gaps and making “last mile” connections requires more than just effective utilization of funds.
Kaiser has worked in 33 rural counties. He celebrates the local champions who have strategically accessed and deployed funding, but bemoans it when “overstretched and under-capacitated counties” fumble opportunities.
“They say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to run a $10 million broadband internet program, and I don’t even have broadband myself,’” he says. “We called up a county manager who’s got their name all over these documents, and asked, ‘What programs are you referring to again?’ This individual doesn’t even live in the county, but serves that county, and they had no idea what I was talking about. That’s the problem.”
It’s exacerbated because the lower population density in rural N.C. means a lower ROI for providers who are awarded funding. Geographic impediments — think mountains, swamps, dense forests — multiply the difficulties of isolation, as do comically inaccurate service maps (some manipulated by contractors) and installers who doggedly, but incorrectly, insist that this grain bin or that abandoned hog house should be wired.
“Broadband kind of works like water,” Kaiser says. “You know, it goes toward the path with the least resistance.”
How Gates County did it
If they handed out a blue ribbon for connecting broadband in rural North Carolina, it’d go to Gates County. The stubborn resolve of then-County Commissioner Althea Riddick and the legwork of Erna Bright Jr., a Gates resident with 40 years of telecommunications experience, gave the county’s 10,343 residents a formidable one-two punch.
Riddick, a Gates native, retired in 2020 as Elizabeth City State University’s registrar and associate vice chancellor for Continuing Education. Around that time, as a new commissioner, she began hearing about struggles students faced finishing classroom assignments because of a lack of internet, and about funding programs designed as a fix.
She enlisted Bright to work as the county’s liaison with internet service providers, or ISPs, focusing on service maps and the finer technical points of deployment. Meanwhile, Riddick watched the dollars, particularly ARPA funds, and worked the phones, tracked policies, pushed administrators and legislators, and smoothed out snags. In time, she became a trusted, insightful voice in northeast N.C. And, out of necessity, a patient one.
“Some people, because they have a cell phone, they think they know fiber,” she says. “Because they get internet at their house, they think they understand how it works.”
Beginning in 2021, Riddick and Bright helped drive the accessibility rate in Gates from 25% to 97% by early 2024. It now sits at 99%, eons ahead of surrounding counties. Chowan County is a distant second at 48%.
“It wasn’t for the faint of heart,” Riddick says. That’s truer than you might imagine. A year ago, sitting in the county manager’s office, Riddick suffered a heart attack. After open-heart surgery, she’s recovering and still consulting on the regional and state level, despite losing her re-election bid after limited campaigning.
Paying attention
Delivering broadband in a lightly populated county such as Gates might seem an easier proposition, but the county’s ancient and often inaccurate utility maps proved especially problematic. As did the Great Dismal Swamp, low utility poles, and potential ISP contractors who were no-shows.
Riddick is fond of saying that in the old Gates County, you could click on “download,” cook a full meal, and then, if you’re lucky, have the file in hand by the time the dishes were cleared.
Now it’s lightning fast. She and Bright earned “Community Advocate of the Year” awards at this year’s N.C. Rural Summit. They were lauded for painstakingly navigating the choppy seas of deployment. The pair had regular Zoom update meetings and frequent late-night brainstorming calls. That is, while Bright wasn’t driving endless miles on county roads he’d not seen before (and to neighboring counties, as a favor) and while Riddick wasn’t dealing with angry constituents who’d had water lines accidentally cut by ISP contractors.
Most of all, their work was about paying attention.
Legislation, Riddick says, was “all over the place. Gov. Cooper was saying one thing, but the federal government was saying something else.” With attention, it was possible to know what questions to ask.
“You need boots on the ground, right?” Riddick says. “Because if you don’t, then you get what you get. And if you only have so many dollars, you’ve got to make every dollar count. And if you know your county and know where people need service, you need to get somebody there — to say, ‘This is where the fiber needs to go,’ and then work with them to see how best to get it there.”
Fast as the state can absorb
Hurdles remain. Most broadband is fiber, and until satellite technology gets more reliable and affordable, last mile connections — the high-cost, low-ROI proposition ISPs face reaching end-of-the-road customers — means that 100% coverage is a big ask, especially in rural N.C. But 99% is eminently feasible.
There’s also help. In addition to the N.C. Rural Center, the state’s Department of Information Technology focuses on policy development, grants and compliance, deploying its own assets to track money and hold providers accountable. They assist when local perspective, local engagement and local expertise aren’t enough to crack broadband’s byzantine framework.
Still, Angie Bailey, director of NCDIT’s Broadband Infrastructure Office, says broadband providers are under huge pressure to move quickly.
“I think we’re kind of moving as fast as the state can absorb,” she says. “And it’s really important that, as this service is built out, people do choose to adopt it — because utilizing it is the key to the kind of transformation that can happen. Broadband providers can only continue to build if people are adopting the service too.”
Denny, the former NCDIT leader who now works as a consultant, is confident that N.C. can get the job done.
“Someone will get in big trouble,” he says, “if there’s anyone who doesn’t have the internet in five, six years, as a result of all this funding.” ■
