WILSON GREENLIGHT RESPONDS TO TRUIST EPIC BROADBAND AWARD BY CONNECTING COMMUNITY
by Catharine Rice -- It was an uplifting day in early April 2021, when Wilson Greenlight learned it had won a Truist EPIC grant award to expand its symmetrical gigabit fiber network to about two hundred majority minority households in Wilson County. These were low density, low-inco [...]
IN THIS PANDEMIC: THE BROADBAND UPSTREAM DILEMMA
by Catharine Rice -- COVID-19 has forced everyone onto the internet, whether for school, work or healthcare. The difference in how this is playing out in urban versus rural communities is being talked about in headline news, where devices are being turned off in rural households so [...]
IEI’S ReCONNECT TO TECHNOLOGICAL OPPORTUNITY: OUR PODCASTS DIVE DEEPER WITH FORUM GUESTS
By: Christa Wagner Vinson Raleigh, N.C. -- At their recent Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh, ReCONNECT to Technological Opportunity, the Institute for Emerging Issues took us back to the future. A future where kids connect to a world of learning, and not from a McDonald’s parking lo [...]
A LIFELINE TO HEALTH: WHY BROADBAND MATTERS FOR TELEMEDICINE
By: Fiona Morgan When Daphne Sykes was 21, an accident nearly severed her spine and left her paralyzed from the neck down. At the time, she was a rising senior at UNC-Charlotte getting ready to start a career. During the medical odyssey that followed, she and her family persevered t [...]
INCOME AND GEOGRAPHY ARE CREATING DIGITAL DIVIDES IN NORTH CAROLINA
By: Patrick Mc Hugh, NC Justice Center Republished with permission from the NC Justice Center. Reliable high-speed internet access is fast becoming as vital to economic opportunity as electricity, good roads, and adequate water. While much discussion rightly focuses on addressing th [...]
SURVIVING THE STORM: WHY BROADBAND MATTERS FOR PUBLIC SAFETY
By Fiona Morgan The water rose faster and higher than anyone had anticipated. Hal Lowder, Jr., recalled watching Hurricane Florence’s impact arrive in Whiteville, where he is the city’s emergency services director. “It was all swamp on Madison Street,” he said. In low-lying areas th [...]
PUBLIC WI-FI ZONES IMPROVE OUR COMMUNITIES
By Open Broadband This article originally appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of Skinny Wire, a publication of Walker and Associates. Internet access is expected in public locations. I was standing in line at a Waxhaw, NC store yesterday and the woman in front of me was trying to pull [...]
ROANOKE ELECTRIC MEMBERSHIP COOPERATIVE CONNECTS ITS MEMBERS TO A BROADBAND FUTURE
By: Catharine Rice Knowing that high-quality broadband is essential to keeping its operations competitive and to improving its members quality of life, the Roanoke Electric Membership Cooperative (REMC) established Roanoke Connect in 2017 to power the region’s digital future. After [...]
BROADBAND ADVOCATES
By: Doug Dawson This blog originally appeared on POTs and PANs from CCG Consulting I’m writing this blog while sitting in a meeting of NCHeartsGigabit, a non-profit started in North Carolina to promote the expansion of broadband. The group started five or six years ago as an informa [...]
CODING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT
By: Hunt Bowers This post originally appeared on WRAL TechWire. As technology and legal scholar Susan Crawford told the audience at the Gig East conference recently, cities will be following Wilson’s example as they look to build out high-speed fiber broadband networks across [...]
HIGH-SPEED BROADBAND AND OPEN DATA WILL TRANSFORM THE TRIAD
Like other cities and regions in North Carolina, Greensboro and surrounding communities are transitioning from their heritage as a textile hub to hosting a more diverse industrial base that includes headquarter locations, logistics and high-tech manufacturing. Amidst all the change [...]
EVENT TO HIGHLIGHT FAST NET SOLUTIONS
By: Monica Doss and Christa Wagner Vinson July 24, 2017 This post originally appeared on WRAL TechWire Gigabit-speed fiber, ubiquitous digital networks, big data and the Internet of Things are driving the pace of innovation ever faster in many cities around the globe. But for those [...]