Raleigh – Another measure to bring better internet to North Carolinians has passed the House in Raleigh and heads next to the Senate.
A $750 million broadband expansion measure for all 100 counties passed the House unanimously on May 26. The funding would be predominately federal and would be allocated based on applications from communities.
State Rep. Karl Gillespie, R-Franklin, said that the bill was similar in its structure and function to the Growing Rural Economies with Rural Access to Technology (GREAT) Grants, which fund the deployment of broadband in underserved rural communities across the state.
“It basically expands that, and has a lot of money in it to expand a lot of different pieces within that,” Gillespie said. “For us, one of the big components of it is the ability to utilize for underserved areas, not just unserved areas.”
He said the funds being allowed for underserved areas would greatly benefit western North Carolina.
“You look at those maps and it will show a particular area as served, and typically one of the two things that will happen is one, there’s only one or two places that’s served within that area and/or the up, and download speeds are so slow it basically renders it useless,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie said the bill was one of a group of broadband bills that had passed the House and were waiting to be taken up in the Senate.
He said that he hoped the bill would soon be taken up in the upper chamber, but emphasized that the Senate was currently busy with budgeting.
“I would imagine that’s what they’re focused on right now to get that turned around,” Gillespie said. “I think it’s a good bill, and I’m very hopeful that it’ll go through.”