$5.4M grant to boost broadband in Chowan, Perquimans

Chowan and Perquimans counties will get a step closer to having full broadband access thanks to a $5.4 million state grant to internet provider FOCUS Broadband.

The Completing Access to Broadband program award from the North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s Division of Broadband and Digital Equity will enable FOCUS to reach an additional 800 homes in Chowan and Perquimans counties, a press release states.

The grant brings $1.9 million to bear on efforts to extend high-speed internet service to Chowan, providing funds to pay for the expensive process of laying new broadband cable to otherwise unprofitable sections of the county. The money should provide high-speed service to more than 300 addresses in Chowan. An additional $3.4 million will be used to reach another 588 addresses in Perquimans County.

FOCUS Broadband will contribute $1 million in matching funds to the projects, and local governments in both counties will put in an additional $338,806.

“FOCUS Broadband is grateful to be awarded funding in this latest round of CAB awards as it allows us to build on the work we are already doing in these two counties,” said Keith Holden, FOCUS Broadband CEO, referring to the Completing Access to Broadband program. “This funding is essential to bringing high-speed internet access to the remaining underserved areas in Chowan and Perquimans counties.

Holden thanked NCDIT for what he said was the agency’s “ongoing efforts to help close the digital divide in rural North Carolina” and the county officials in both Chowan and Perquimans, who he said “have been instrumental in securing funding to bring high-speed Internet to their county’s residents.”

The effort is part of larger effort by FOCUS to provide gigabyte-speed internet to some of the more remote sections of both counties. FOCUS has received $15 million from the NCDIT’s Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology.

The NCDIT awarded a total of $67 million in CAB funding and $356 million in Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology grants in 2022 and 2023. Statewide, 140,000 North Carolinians have benefited from the funding, the release states.