While multiple broadband projects are either queued up or underway in south Macon County and one in Nantahala, many unserved areas of the county are waiting on a company that won’t be in Macon until 2025 at the earliest.
Jeff Lee of Little T Broadband Services, a nonprofit that aims to bring broadband to all of Macon County and representing the broadband committee of Macon County, offered a general overview of broadband coming to Macon County to the Board of Commissioners at its July 11 meeting.
But besides those areas, there are limited opportunities to get grants for other unserved areas in the next couple years due to the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) – a federal subsidy program administered in 2020. Lee expressed frustration with the program because Charter Communications won the bid for all eligible census blocks in Macon in 2020.
Those blocks represent 60% of the unserved broadband locations in the county. However, the issue is that Charter hasn’t expanded into Macon County and won’t do so until 2025 at the earliest, Lee said. Due to RDOF rules, no other grant-funded broadband programs can construct in those blocks.
“Charter has a monopoly on it even though they’re not here,” Lee said.
Charter is currently working in Haywood and Jackson counties, Lee explained. The RDOF mandates that Charter finish its work by 2028, a deadline Lee said can be extended by request. If Charter defaults on those blocks, they would be fined, but Lee said that’s a “pretty minuscule fine compared to a company that size.”
“It impacts us greatly when we go for these other grant programs, because we can’t touch them through legislation,” Lee said.
New GREAT grant funds
In the first of several pieces of good news for broadband expansion, Macon County got news in early July that it received $992,000 in Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) grant funding.
Frontier Communications won the first GREAT grant award in September 2022, and Lee said the county signed the agreement on May 9. Frontier has a two-year time clock for extending service to the 2,700 locations using $3.8 million through ARPA funds and a $665,000 match requirement. Macon County contributed $50,000 in its ARPA funds to maximize the application.
The 2,700 locations are spread across the eligible tracts in the county not part of the RDOF census tracts, mainly surrounding Franklin, in and around Otto and Scaly Mountain, the Ellijay community and a few in Highlands and other locations.
Lee said a Frontier representative has been invited to give an update at the August commissioners meeting.
The second round of GREAT grants announced July 6 netted $992,404 for Macon County and will serve 263 households and businesses in Otto, Scaly Mountain and the area between Scaly Mountain and Highlands. Macon County will use ARPA funds for $50,000 of the $175,000 match from local provider BalsamWest.
“This will actually play very well because we already have a county investment in the South Macon project to bring a fiber backbone to that area, so this project will help us build in that area,” Lee said.
That backbone to South Macon started in 2020. BalsamWest has constructed a fiber backbone from Franklin city limits to Highlands city limits. In addition to the Otto and Scaly Mountain community centers and fire stations, Lee said 18 businesses and 243 residents are now connected, with more to come depending on provider resources. Lee said work continues slowly due to a lack of additional grant money until recently.
Speaking on July 7, N.C. Sen. Kevin Corbin said the strategy developed with county commissioners, providers and educators last spring is paying off.
“Seven out of the 33 awards came to this district,” Corbin said of the latest GREAT grant awards. “We’ve seen more than our fair share of grants. There’s several reasons for that, including being successful in educating our counties and providers about our grants, the provider being aggressive in applying for grants. I’ve been in contact with county commissioners and managers, and they’ve been aggressive in asking providers to apply.”
The seven westernmost counties of Macon, Swain, Jackson, Clay, Graham, Cherokee and Transylvania received around $16.425 million in total to bring broadband to 5,224 households and businesses.
As part of the federally funded GREAT grant eligibility requirements, the state requires all internet service provider applicants to participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) to offer eligible low-income households a $30 per month discount on high-speed internet service or provide access to a comparable low-cost program. Applicants must agree to provide high-speed service, defined as a minimum of 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload, scalable to 100 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload on or before Dec. 31, 2026.
Even though the ARPA funding for the state GREAT grant program is exhausted, Corbin said the 2023-25 budget will include more program funding, including more federal dollars.
Nantahala broadband project
By a unanimous vote, the commissioners approved allowing the broadband committee to negotiate a project that will connect the vital services in the Nantahala community.
The project will have fiber optic deployment from the Nantahala Recreation Center on Old River Road and nearby Junaluska Recycling Center to Nantahala EMS, to Nantahala Volunteer Fire and Rescue, to the new Nantahala Library and Community Center and then to the volunteer fire and rescue substation just north of Nantahala School.
“The people of Nantahala are definitely with us 100% in getting this piece into place,” Shields said. “You’re talking about people who are isolated due to not having access.”
Lee said the library can’t operate without high-speed internet and that the entire area suffers from a lack of connectivity and service, with “minimal and intermittent” coverage from Frontier, especially emergency services. Board Chair Paul Higdon noted the Nantahala Library is pursuing using StarLink for its high-speed internet. Lee said his StarLink works when it’s not raining or storming.
“StarLink works well for those that can afford it and it works for single families,” Lee said. “Supporting multiple computer terminals, everybody trying to access at once, StarLink is not that kind of service.” Lee said he would not use StarLink for Life Link communications.
The project, first approved in 2022, received requests for proposals earlier this year. The proposal was to build fiber services at those five Nantahala facilities. Two responses were received – BalsamWest and Charter. However, the committee found out that Charter wouldn’t commit to a timeframe, so they recommended BalsamWest.
“It was the only real bid on the project,” Lee said.
Lee said after reaching an agreement, the broadband committee would return to the commissioners to get final approval to start the project. Funds left over from the Nantahala Library project are being used for this fiber optic line. Upon questioning by Commissioner John Shearl, Lee said the current estimate is $375,000 with a $400,000 bid cap, plus a $10,000 charge for each of the five hookups. Lee thinks the broadband committee could negotiate a better dollar figure. Higdon said a key part of the negotiations will be the annual fees.
Additionally, the requests ask the provider what they’re willing to do for houses and businesses within 500 feet of the planned fiber lines. Lee said both Charter and BalsamWest said they would help make fiber available to houses within 500 feet, even though they didn’t have to.
Higdon asked why the line is going to the recreation center since there are no businesses in the area. Lee said the community uses the Nantahala Recreation Center, and if they need to call an ambulance to the ball fields, there’s no service. Higdon noted that medical helicopters use the Nantahala ball fields as a landing zone.
Commissioner Josh Young said it was hard to accept this request for the proposal without a dollar figure. Higdon said once they get a dollar figure, he wants to present it to the Nantahala community before any final approval.
After the vote, Lee said there are several grants the broadband committee can apply for in the next couple of years.