From our news services
Hyde County is among 14 rural North Carolina counties that will receive a grant to provide high-speed internet access to 1,282 homes or businesses, including on Ocracoke Island.
In a press release issued by Gov. Josh Stein’s office, the total $31 million in grants are part of Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) program projects connecting 10,810 households and businesses in 14 counties.
In Hyde County, the impact will be broader bandwidth access to 95.25% of the county’s 1,346 eligible locations.
According to the North Carolina Department of Information Technology (NCDIT), the objectives of getting higher-speed internet access include greater online learning opportunities, broader access to telehealth and more economic possibilities.
These projects will be funded by more than $22.1 million from the federal American Rescue Plan, which is awarded by NCDIT, and by nearly $9.6 million from selected broadband providers in Avery, Beaufort, Buncombe, Cumberland, Dare, Hyde, Jones, Nash, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Swain, Transylvania, Wake and Yancey counties.
In North Carolina, notable internet providers include Spectrum, AT&T, Brightspeed, T-Mobile, Google Fiber, Starlink and Xfinity. Brightspeed, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, has been awarded the grant funds to do the work in nine of the 14 recipient counties, including Hyde.
According to Randal Mathews of Ocracoke, who is chair of the Hyde County county commissioners, the Brightspeed work on the island should start in September.
The process involves laying fiber-optic cable underground starting at the north end and then mounting it on power poles. A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light.
“Once the Brightspeed work is completed, people can subscribe,” Mathews said, acknowledging that some Ocracoke residents already have Brightspeed. “Broadband will be wider and service should be stronger.”
As part of Stein’s initiative to close the digital divide, the CAB program awards will be added in April to NCDIT’s dashboards, which show details and progress on programs funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act. The awards add to the existing $516 million in Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) grants, as well as previous CAB projects that will connect close to 190,000 North Carolina households and businesses to high-speed internet.
The CAB program’s procurement process creates a partnership between counties and NCDIT to identify areas that need access and solicits proposals from prequalified internet service providers. Awardees must agree to provide high-speed service that reliably meets or exceeds upload and download speeds of 100 Mbps.
For more information about the NCDIT Division of Broadband and Digital Opportunity, visit www.ncbroadband.gov.
