From Ben Rappaport, Chatham News + Record
Chatham County received state funding to improve broadband access for more than 1,900 homes through the Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) Grant program.
Last week, Governor Roy Cooper announced $206 million in state funding toward improving broadband access across the state. The money aims to bring high-speed internet to rural counties in North Carolina, including Chatham. The county is eligible for up to $8 million in funding through the GREAT grant.
The GREAT program funds 85,000 households and 2,400 businesses that cover 69 counties, including Chatham. This is the state’s largest round of GREAT grant awards to date, with more funding expected to be announced in the fall.
According to County Manager Dan LaMontagne, Chatham County had six applicants, the second most of any county in the state. Last week’s announcement approved one of those applicants — Connect Holding.
The approval of Connect Holding, also known as Brightspeed, connects 1,914 addresses to broadband services. Final maps and a list of addresses have not yet been shared.
“Chatham County certainly hopes to partner with internet service providers on future opportunities for federal and state funding, as they become available,” LaMontagne told the News + Record.
In its original application, Connect Holding accounted for the most addresses covered with the grants at 5,578 total addresses, with more than 5,400 of those being residential. No other applicant had more than 1,500 total addresses.
With last week’s announcement from Cooper, $260 million in GREAT grants have been awarded to providers since July 2022.
“High-speed internet access is critical for people to work, learn, access telehealth and connect with one another,” Governor Cooper said in a press release about the announcement. “Thanks to this significant GREAT grant award funding, many more North Carolina families and small business owners will have the tools they need to succeed in today’s digital world.”
The state’s most recent GREAT grant awards follow previous funding given out this summer, $23.4 million awarded on July 18 and the $30.8 million awarded on Aug. 1 of the $350 million total funding for this round.
“We are excited to be awarding this unprecedented amount of funding to bring high-speed internet access to such a large number of residents and businesses across the state,” said N.C. Dept. of Information Technology Secretary and State Chief Information Officer Jim Weaver. “These funds will go a long way in closing the digital divide by bringing equitable access to both rural and urban communities.”
LaMontagne said he hopes Chatham County will be awarded two GREAT grants — meaning Chatham would be awarded up to $16 million of the state’s available $350 million in the GREAT program.
More grant funding is available to the county for broadband access. The Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) Grant program is expected to open soon. CAB provides an opportunity for individual N.C. counties to partner with the state to fund broadband deployment projects in unserved areas of each county.
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