Bit by bit, major investments bring broadband to the mountains Western North Carolina census blocks eligible for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund are denoted in shades of red. FCC map
After years of pecking away at Western North Carolina’s broadband problem at the state level, a large-scale federal investment in rural broadband access could bring a game-changing impact for schools, businesses and entrepreneurs across the country, state and region.
“The federal grants coming to North Carolina amount to a total of $166 million [and] $45 million is going to Haywood and west,” said Sen. Kevin Corbin, R-Franklin. “A total of 155,000 customers will be hooked up to high-speed internet in North Carolina and we are getting 35,000 hookups in the seven western counties.”
By Mark Starling
Buncombe County Sets Vaccine Amount For Teachers
(Buncombe County, NC) Close to one-thousand weekly doses of COVID-19 vaccines are going to Buncombe County school staff. Health director Stacie Saunders told county commissioners yesterday that the state has been sending Buncombe nearly two-thousand vaccines weekly, and around half should go to teachers. The remaining will be distributed to the county s current waitlist. Commission chair Brownie Newman and others endorsed the recommendation.
Icy Weather Threatening Mountains
(Asheville, NC) Dangerous weather conditions are heading towards the mountains. The National Weather Service has placed western North Carolina under a winter weather watch from tonight through Thursday evening. A mix of sleet and snow is expected to turn over into freezing rain, which could cause power outages and tree damage. Ice accumulations might reach a quarter of an inch in some parts.
Internet service provider GeoLinks used tools from VCTI to develop a network buildout plan to meet its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) obligations.
Parts of Rural Missouri Will Get Gigabit Speeds With New Spectrum Initiative
Parts of Rural Missouri Will Get Gigabit Speeds With New Spectrum Initiative
Charter Expanding Coverage in 33 Missouri Counties Share this story Published February 17th, 2021 at 6:00 AM Above image credit: A fiber optic cable used to provide broadband internet service. (Jens B ttner | AP Images)
A new initiative from one of Missouri’s biggest internet service providers promises to bring super fast broadband speeds to areas where they are desperately needed.
Charter Communications, which provides Spectrum service, recently announced a $5 billion initiative that will focus on broadband buildout in 24 states, reaching an estimated 1 million unserved customer locations. The buildout will include $1.2 billion in Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) money that was awarded to the company in late 2020.
GeoLinks Leverages VCTI Rural Development Opportunity Fund Planning Service to Optimize Winning RDOF Phase I Auction Bids
Location and Network Planning Analytics Bolster Winning Bid
News provided by
Share this article
Share this article
SOMERSET, N.J., Feb. 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ VCTI, the broadband network experts, today announced that GeoLinks, the fastest growing telecommunications company in California, utilized VCTI s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Planning Service in being named a provisional winner in the RDOF auction.
GeoLinks employed VCTI s RDOF Planning Service to determine its deployment options across fiber, fixed wireless, and hybrid architectures for the recent Federal Communications Commission s (FCC) RDOF auction. The company was named a provisional winner of $234.9 million in the FCC RDOF Phase I auction, announced in December 2020.