Macon County’s second broadband project this decade is finished and three more that will bring service to 4,000 new locations are starting soon.
Jeff Lee of Little T Broadband, which provides broadband consulting to the county, gave the update late at the Macon County Board of Commissioners meeting on July 9.
Lee said the Nantahala fiber connection project, started last fall, is essentially done. The project connects fiber optic to the Recreation Center, Nantahala EMS, Nantahala Volunteer Fire and Rescue, the Nantahala Community Library and the Nantahala VFR substation.
The physical work began in Fall 2023. Lee said BalsamWest completed the construction on June 24. A fiber headend at Nantahala School was also installed. A network contractor completed network activation at the facilities on the Fourth of July weekend, meaning public WiFi is available. The network management handoff to Macon County IT happened on July 8.
The public WiFi, a separate project, was done by SMS through a $50,000 Southwestern Commission grant.
Commissioner Paul Higdon asked about the reception to the Nantahala sites. Lee said he’s yet to meet with a whole group, but the reception he’s heard has been positive.
“Especially from the public service folks, they’re thrilled,” Lee said.
GREAT Grant projects
The $4.3 million GREAT Grant program ($3.8 million from the grant) that will connect 2,700 locations in various sections of the county through Frontier is in the permitting phase. Areas covered include north of Franklin, west and south of Franklin down to Otto, parts of Scaly Mountain and parts of Highlands and Cullasaja. The engineering is done and headend construction at two facilities is in progress. The hope is to meet with the fiber subcontractors and project manager in August and start fiber construction in the fall.
The $1.2 million BalsamWest GREAT Grant program ($1 million from the grant) to connect 263 homes in Otto and Scaly Mountain is also in the permitting phase. Lee said engineering is done, and material orders and fiber contractor selection are in process. The anticipated start is in late summer/early fall 2024.
Charter
Lee said he has not heard from Charter since late 2023. Charter won the right to build fiber optic lines in large parts of rural Macon County through the federal Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) bidding process. Thus, Charter has a monopoly on 8,191 locations, estimated to cost $9 million, through 2028. Lee said he was under the impression Charter would have started in April-June of this year.
CAB Grant
The most recent broadband grant, the Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) Grant, will start immediately, Lee said. The county’s Broadband Committee identified seven priority areas in Macon County for broadband expansion. The committee collaborated with the N.C. Department of IT to create a statement of work, which was posted on April 18 and closed on June 3. The statement got three bids and after an evaluation, County Manager Derek Roland, Lee and others unanimously selected BalsamWest.
“We were actually under non-disclosure [until July 1]; we had to sign quite a bit of paperwork…to keep all the process confidential,” Lee said. “Once it was public we could tell you.”
The total CAB Grant project is $5,485,204 and will serve 1,163 locations. The CAB Grant covers $4,113,903, with a county match of $548,520, previously approved in the spring and a vendor match of $822,781.
The project has a two-year build timeline with completion of Oct. 31, 2026.
Lee said the CAB Grant will mostly finish broadband installation in Sanderstown, Cullasaja, Nantahala and the U.S. 64 gorge area north of Highlands.
Macon County is still eligible for additional CAB and Stop Gap grants, as $518K from the original $1.067 million the county approved to allocate in the spring is available.
With the addition of the new CAB Grant, there have been seven broadband/WiFi projects throughout Macon County over the last three years, including the South Macon Broadband project that BalsamWest completed in 2022. Lee pointed out these seven projects have cost $21.77 million but have only required a $1.59 million total county match. Eventually, including the RDOF grant, these will serve 12,330 locations.