North Carolina took a big step forward last week in resolving its perpetual broadband deficiencies, but Chatham County does not stand to benefit in the immediate future.
Last Thursday, Gov. Roy Cooper announced a new round of the GREAT program (Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology), which will dispense $29.8 million in grant money between 11 internet providers across 18 different counties. The funds will be distributed through the N.C. Dept. of Information Technology Broadband Infrastructure Office.
Nearly 16,000 households and about 700 businesses in rural North Carolina will receive high-speed internet — but none in Chatham County.
Out of 71 applications from 54 N.C. counties, only one represented Chatham — Randolph Communications, a telephone and internet provider headquartered in Asheboro. To bolster the company’s application, Chatham County’s government submitted a letter of support hoping to garner extra attention, but still the request for funding was denied.
“We were very, very bummed,” Randolph Communications marketing director Stephanie Gee said.
As for why the application was turned down, state officials offered little explanation.
“They didn’t give us much at all,” Gee said, “just that our application did not score the points that it needed.”
Internet providers were selected for GREAT program funding based on the needs of counties they serve, evaluated according to the state’s tier system. For this special supplementary round of grants, only projects in Tier 1, Tier 2 and rural census tracts of Tier 3 counties were eligible.
“The Tier system is always going to be problematic,” said Robert Reives II, Chatham’s legislator in the N.C. House of Representatives and leader of the chamber’s Democratic Party. “It’s always going to be a problem because Chatham has such a unique place in the Tier system, and it’s even worse when it comes to a broadband discussion.”
North Carolina’s Tiers are designed to level the playing field for the state’s 100 counties by enhancing access to grant and loan funding. Counties designated as Tier 1 or Tier 2 are supposed to represent the state’s more economically disadvantaged communities. Chatham, as a Tier 3 county, is listed among the top 20 wealthiest counties in North Carolina, and its aggregate score makes it “officially the least-distressed county in the state,” according to Business North Carolina. But the system short-changes poorer municipalities located in wealthier counties. In Chatham, wealthier northeastern neighborhoods misrepresent the county’s overall fiscal health and stifle opportunities for underfunded areas to receive much-needed state assistance.
“Because of the wealthy side of Chatham,” Reives said, “we get treated like the Wake counties, and Durham counties and Orange counties when it comes time for these distributions.”
Unlike those counties, however — which have strong and accessible broadband service — Chatham’s internet access is notoriously poor. Almost 15%, or about 4,300 Chatham households, have no internet access at all. That ranks worse than some counties included in the GREAT program such as Brunswick and Pitt with 12% and 14% of households lacking internet.
The county itself has for many years tried to address its broadband shortcomings independent of state assistance, but with little success.
“Ensuring that all Chatham County residents have access to reliable internet service is our top legislative goal,” county manager Dan LaMontagne said, “and county leaders want to do everything we can to find a way to meet this need … However, overcoming the power of the big service providers has been a tough road, and the county is restricted in what it can do to promote more options.”
Chatham’s biggest inhibitor is a pair of state laws that limit county authority. A 1999 law restricts electric cooperatives’ access to capital for telecommunications, and a 2011 law prevents local governments from building internet networks themselves. The latter, which Reives calls the “Wilson law,” set an especially dangerous precedent.
“Basically, what happened is that in the town of Wilson, the town itself took on the infrastructure needed for broadband, and eventually started distributing broadband,” Reives said. “And of course, the private companies that were involved did not take kindly to that. So, the General Assembly at that point passed a law forbidding townships, counties and municipalities from being involved in distribution of broadband and its infrastructure at all.”
Since then, local governments have faced an uphill battle to effect change in their counties.
“Counties are even more hampered than towns by these laws, which severely restrict what local governments can do to spur broadband development,” LaMontagne said, “even in counties like ours where over half of the county has either no broadband at all or very slow connections. The big communications corporations lobbied hard and won passage of these bills that neither allow us to offer incentives to private providers nor lease some of our facilities to them.”
Reives hopes the General Assembly will recognize what he considers to be an unjust law, and take action to reverse it.
“Repealing that law would put us back to square one,” he said, “which to me would still be a better situation than now.”
Thereafter, he said, the General Assembly must take steps to adjust the legal definition of broadband from a commodity to a utility.
“Right now, broadband is a convenience — broadband is a luxury item,” Reives said. “But think of it in terms of electricity. If electricity was still a luxury item, then you would have places in this county, Chatham County itself, where there would be no electricity, and there’d be no way to ever get it provided. Once it becomes a utility, then there’s a governmental obligation to then make sure that it’s provided to all areas of the state.”
Reives is optimistic that his calls for broadband reform will gain traction on the General Assembly floor. While most legislative policies have become fodder for derisive political dispute, broadband is increasingly central to both parties’ platforms.
“Expanding access to rural broadband is a shared priority,” N.C. Senate Leader Phil Berger, a Republican from Rockingham County, said in a news release.
His fellow party member, House Speaker Tim Moore of Cleveland County, agreed.
“Rural broadband remains a top priority of this General Assembly,” he said in a release, “and our state is fortunate to have continued revenue availability to meet this need and make flexible budget adjustments as federal rules may require.”
While legislators haggle over the details of legislative reform, internet providers hope that another round of GREAT program funding will open in coming months.
“I don’t know what the guidelines would be like if they had another round,” Gee said, “but we’re hoping they’ll reopen … And even still, we’re heavily involved in getting broadband to the rural areas of Chatham County — actively doing so.”
The county, too, will keep working to improve internet access, despite unfavorable circumstances.
“We are pursuing options with strong promise,” LaMontagne said. “We do not yet have final plans, funding and contracts — although we are working through those needs as quickly as laws, processes and resources allow … When we believe an opportunity exists, we pursue it expediently.”
For more information about broadband in Chatham County visit chathamnc.org/broadband.
Reporter D. Lars Dolder can be reached at dldolder@chathamnr.com and on Twitter @dldolder.