Fourteen counties in North Carolina, including Madison and Mitchell, will share $22 million for broadband expansion. The expansion will connect 6,012 households and 164 businesses to high-speed internet. The Completing Access to Broadband program (CAB) administered by the N.C. Department of Information Technology, complements the state’s Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology grant program to reach additional unserved areas.
The NCDIT Broadband Infrastructure Office, made the following awards, which are contingent upon a final, executed grant agreement with broadband provider partners:
- Alexander County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
- Franklin County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
- Granville County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
- Haywood County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
- Hertford County: Roanoke Connect Holdings (FYBE)
- Madison County: Skyrunner Inc.
- Mitchell County: French Broad Electric Membership Corp. (French Broad Fiber)
- Onslow County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
- Robeson County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
- Rutherford County: Bellsouth Telecommunications LLC (AT&T)
- Sampson County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
- Stokes County: Surry Telephone Membership Corp.
- Vance County: Zitel LLC
- Wilkes County: Wilkes Communications Inc.
Counties may choose to fund internet infrastructure projects not funded by the GREAT grant under the CAB program or they may participate in the NCDIT-administered procurement process in which pre-qualified internet service providers reply to service expansion requests in areas mutually defined by the counties and the division.
These new CAB program awards add to the nearly $348 million in GREAT grants awarded in 2022 and 2023 that are set to connect 144,046 North Carolina households and businesses to high-speed internet. The GREAT grant and CAB programs provide matching grants to internet service providers that may partner with individual North Carolina counties to compete for funding to expand high-speed internet service to unserved and underserved areas of the state.
Like GREAT grant awardees, all CAB program grantees must participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program, which provides eligible low-income households a $30 per month discount on high-speed internet service or provide access to a comparable low-cost program.
CAB program applicants must also 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.
