Graham County may see noticeable increases in internet quality over the next few years, following the announcement of a $9.2 billion Federal Communications Commission grant called the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
The agency announced the grant on Dec. 7, which will provide internet to more than 5.2 million underserved homes and businesses across the country, including Graham County.
Graham County Economic Development Director Sophia Paulos said the the majority of what the grant would not cover in the county was sparsely-populated, National Forest Service land.
“It means that over the next 5 or 10 years, we will no longer have a broadband problem in Graham County,” Paulos affirmed. “We may see our population increase. It may help our small businesses, who have trouble with something as simple as a credit card machine.”
Paulos said she expected some sort of action from the FCC, but was surprised the announcement came this soon.
Most of the service the grant will likely bring to Graham County will be low-latency gigabit service, with some patches of above baseline service. The two major companies receiving the funds for western North Carolina are Space Ex and CCO Holdings.
The contracts went to various companies in an auction process.