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Brightspeed updates commissioners on fiber build, grant awards and remaining eligible addresses in Johnston County
Summary
Brightspeed told the county board it has privately funded fiber builds across thousands of locations in Johnston County, was awarded several grant rounds and that roughly 4,300 addresses remain eligible for federal/state grants under BEAD/CAB programs.
Brightspeed government‑affairs director Steve Brewer briefed the Johnston County Board of Commissioners on June 16 about the company’s ongoing fiber build, recent grant awards and remaining grant‑eligible addresses in the county.
Brewer said Brightspeed has been awarded 3,925 locations under a state grant program funded by the American Rescue Plan (the presenter called this the “great grant”), and 574 of those locations are already open for sale. He said Brightspeed was also awarded 1,439 locations in the state’s CAB 2 round. Separately, Brewer described a private‑investment build of “just over 35,000” locations Brightspeed plans to serve using company dollars, of which roughly half are already open for sale.
Brewer told commissioners that, as of the most recent CAB 2 awards, there are approximately 4,300 locations in Johnston County that remain eligible for broadband grants because they lack service meeting the federal 100/20 Mbps benchmark. He described timeline expectations: the ARPA/state award locations are expected to be online by the end of the year or very early the following quarter, CAB 2 locations have project deadlines tied to NCDIT awards with a stated completion target of end‑of‑2026 and a typical 24‑month build window, and federal BEAD awards (administered through NCDIT in North Carolina) are expected to generate preliminary announcements in early September with NTIA review to follow.
Brewer said Brightspeed will participate in grant rounds and hopes to serve as many eligible locations as possible with fiber; he also acknowledged that some locations designated for BEAD may be served by fixed‑wireless or satellite depending on cost. He noted the company’s fiber is symmetrical and currently provisioned up to 2 Gbps (and technically capable of higher speeds in the future).
Commissioners asked how homeowners can check status for a particular address; Brewer directed residents to the NCDIT broadband status map, which allows address lookup to show whether a location is served, unserved or awarded under a grant program and notes the awarded provider and a project completion window when available.
The briefing contained no formal action items; commissioners asked staff to make the NCDIT status map link available for public reference.
