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State broadband office outlines funding, maps and local help for Pender County residents
Summary
A North Carolina broadband official told the Pender County Commission the state has expanded mapping and funding programs and offers direct assistance to residents with broadband problems; county will participate in evaluation for upcoming grant round.
The North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s Broadband Infrastructure Office told the Pender County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 18 that the state has expanded mapping and funding efforts and is offering direct local assistance to residents with broadband problems.
Jeff Brooks, a state broadband official, said North Carolina has increased its broadband investment from $10 million in 2018 to hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years, and that roughly $1.5 billion more is expected in a coming round. Brooks described two state programs — the “GREAT” scored grant and the Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) best-value program — and said CAB encourages county participation in proposal evaluations so local needs are considered.
Brooks said the state received 74 CAB applications before the program’s recent deadline and that Pender County received proposals; county staff will be invited to serve on the evaluation team. He emphasized improvements in mapping: federal maps formerly reported service at the census-block level, which overstated coverage, while the state’s address-level mapping has identified far more unserved locations and increased North Carolina’s broadband allocation.
Brooks urged residents who lack service or have reliability problems to contact the state office. He said inbound calls are routed to the county manager and that the office aims to respond to individuals within 24 to 48 hours and to work directly with service providers to troubleshoot outages.
He also described other state efforts: digital equity and adoption programs that help residents get devices and training, a pole-replacement program, and stop-gap solutions to address immediate gaps while larger buildouts are planned. Brooks said contractors typically have up to 24 months to complete builds awarded under state grants; some federal programs have longer build-out windows.
Commissioners and Brooks discussed local participation: county manager Michael Silberman has been contacted about serving on evaluation panels for the current CAB round. Brooks said the state’s dashboards and maps are publicly available at NCOneMap and that the broadband office will share applicant and prequalification information with county staff.
