The NC Department of Information Technology has awarded a $4M Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) grant to Connect Holding II, LLC d/b/a BrightSpeed to deploy broadband services to approximately 1070 households and businesses in Beaufort County.
Beaufort County partnered with BrightSpeed on the GREAT grant application by committing $500,000 of its American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to support the project.
As part of the GREAT grant eligibility requirements, all internet service provider applicants must be participating in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), 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.
Applicants must 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 December 31, 2026.
To see a copy of the press release from the Governor's Office on these awards click this link.
The NC Department of Information Technology has posted the address-level locations for the GREAT grants on the NC OneMap at this link: https://www.nconemap.gov/pages/broadband
