- Information courtesy of Franklin County Public Information Officer James F. Hicks III
More than 2,300 locations in Franklin County will be added to the growing list of places getting high speed broadband internet access.
Through new Completing Access to Broadband grant funding, Brightspeed – formerly CenturyLink and Lumen – will begin deploying high speed fiber-to-the-home internet to 2,374 locations. Earlier this month, the N.C. Dept. of Information Technology’s Division of Broadband and Digital Equity announced a $5.6 million award to the county. In April, the county agreed to spend $2 million in ARPA funds to match the funding requirements.
The final county match comes to $1,962,728.95, according to Franklin County Public Information Officer James F. Hicks III. Once completed, in October 2026, about 50 percent of the eligible locations in the county will have the high-speed capability.
“I fully support this overwhelmingly. We have got to get this service out to the underserved parts of the County,” Board of Commissioners Chair Harry Foy said. “Everybody needs internet like electricity, water and sewer. You have got to have it.”
Franklin County has benefited from broadband grant funding in the past several years. Two previous awards under the Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) allowed Brightspeed to deploy fiber to more than 3,400 locations in Franklin County.
A map identifying the areas awarded under the CAB program can be found on the county’s website where information on the county’s broadband efforts can also be found.
The CAB program provides an opportunity for individual N.C. counties to partner with NCDIT to fund broadband deployment projects in unserved areas of each county. N.C. Session Law 2021-180 appropriated $400 million from ARPA for this program. NCDIT awarded CAB grant funds to connect nearly 26,000 households and businesses in 19 counties to high-speed internet.