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Chatham County says grants will shrink unserved broadband addresses from 11,000 to under 200; coalition recommends plan edits
Summary
County staff updated commissioners on broadband grant awards — RDOF, GREAT, CAB, BEAD/BEED and StopGap — that together are projected to serve the vast majority of unserved addresses; the Digital Inclusion Coalition proposed edits to the county plan (affordability outreach, hot‑spot allocation, GenAI/data privacy literacy) which the board adopted.
Chatham County staff briefed the Board of Commissioners May 18 on a year of broadband activity and recommended updates to the county’s Digital Inclusion Plan that the board adopted.
Brenton (manager’s office) explained major federal and state awards currently under construction or in projected BEED/BEAD awards: RDOF allocations, two GREAT grants, multiple CAB grants and projected BEED awards from Broadband Equity Access and Deployment partners. Staff said combined awards and provider matches will serve thousands of addresses countywide and — once the awarded projects complete construction — reduce unserved locations from a 2023 estimate of more than 11,000 to a projected 186 unserved locations.
In addition, staff summarized related programs that have supported adoption: the county’s car‑seat program funded via CCPT (example of targeted grants), a Central Pines/Crandone Institute digital‑equity grant (subaward administered with Cranborne Institute) that distributed over 500 devices and offered computer basics classes (including Spanish‑language classes), and $30,000 for devices for local centers for active living.
Digital Inclusion Coalition recommendations: The advisory group recommended iterative edits: preserve availability goals (do not alter mapping targets), update access strategies to advertise state/federal discounts if they return and to coordinate hotspot allocations with partners, expand device access and training, and add generative AI/data‑privacy training to digital literacy goals. The board voted to accept the coalition’s recommended edits and asked staff to incorporate the changes as a plan addendum.
What this means: County staff said the combination of deployment awards and adoption programs increases the technical feasibility that most households will have access in the near term; officials cautioned that remaining pockets of unserved households may be costly to serve and will need stop‑gap solutions. The board asked staff to continue outreach to residents who report being excluded from maps and to work with NCDIT and ISPs to identify opportunities to add households that appear as anomalies on provider maps.
