STILL WAITING — PART 3: FIBER, SATELLITE AND THE COPPER QUESTION
SPINDALE, N.C. (WNCW) - Federal rules have shifted toward the cheapest way to connect a home, and broadband experts say that could change what gets built in Western North Carolina's mountains.
WHICH MONEY BUILDS WHAT
The type of internet a community gets depends partly on which funding program pays for it, said Angie Bailey, director of the Broadband Infrastructure Office at the N.C. Department of Information Technology.
"The American Rescue Plan Act funds have a prioritization for fiber," Bailey said. North Carolina has 406 projects underway with that money, she said, and only one is not fiber. The federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, known as BEAD, "is more focused on cost savings, and it has more focus on low Earth orbit satellite," Bailey said. Still, she said, she expects the state to end up with "a really strong combination of technology types."
Brian Rathbone, a broadband consultant and former state broadband office staffer, said the BEAD rule change has big consequences. He estimated that reaching every location in Western North Carolina with fiber would cost about half a billion dollars. That was roughly what planners expected when fiber was a priority, he said, "before the rules changed and it became lowest-cost technology wins, instead of most robust technology wins."
THE SATELLITE DEBATE
Satellite proved its value after Hurricane Helene, said Dave Kaiser, senior director of policy advocacy and innovation at the N.C. Rural Center. Because it does not require buried or hung lines, "satellite broadband was one of the fastest ways people could reconnect," he said. He added that geography limits it.
Sarah Thompson, vice president of economic opportunity and strategic initiatives at Dogwood Health Trust, said satellite is "a good and important technology," but not the best option for the last stretch to a home. She cited cost, saying it has the most expensive monthly subscription and setup, and terrain. "It doesn't work great where there are mountains and lots of tree canopy cover," Thompson said. For emergencies, she said, "every community center should have a Starlink."
Rathbone was more blunt. Based on preliminary analysis from his own mapping tool, he said thousands of North Carolina locations have been awarded satellite service where it is not going to work well without very tall poles. "We have thousands of locations in North Carolina that have been awarded satellite service where it's not going to work well without a hundred-foot pole," he said.
He called satellite in the mountains a sensitive topic, but said in his personal and professional opinion that Western North Carolina is "not a great place to use satellite service in general." He pointed to Panther Creek in Graham County as a place where it would not make sense.
Bailey said the state is watching for that problem. Satellite providers have up to four years to make service available, she said, and the state is developing a system for residents to report if a satellite service they were awarded does not meet their needs for speed and capacity. She said the state works with more than 30 broadband providers on current awards, about two-thirds of which operate in Western North Carolina, and monitors their compliance.
THE COPPER QUESTION
AT&T is retiring its copper phone lines across the country, including in this region. Rathbone said the company is decommissioning copper in Rutherford County and that he understands why. "Imagine if your business had to maintain two completely separate systems, one of which was old, rickety, and really expensive," he said.
But he said the transition can leave customers worse off. He described a farm that had the same phone number for 25 years. After AT&T switched the farm from copper to U-verse, he said, it lost its number and its accurate location when calling 911. "I think they are falling a little short in working with communities to make sure there are not negative impacts," Rathbone said.
Rathbone said he has heard AT&T is giving a year's notice in other states, which he believed included Minnesota. His concern, he said, is places where copper is being retired and there is no other internet option and no cell signal. "Those people are in trouble," he said.
WNCW reached out to several of the major internet providers serving the region. Some responded, but none agreed to an interview or provided a statement for this series.
PRICE AND THE LONG-TERM BET
Even where networks exist, cost can keep people offline. Kaiser said the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program, a federal subsidy that helped lower-income households pay for internet, hit rural families hard. "Fiber internet is expensive. High-speed internet from satellites is expensive," he said. "And those lifeline programs were utilized pretty heavily by citizens and businesses of rural areas."
Looking ahead, Rathbone said fiber has the most room to grow. "It is the least saturated of all the technologies," he said. "Cable, copper, and wireless are saturated." He said cable ages and costs more to maintain, noting that ultraviolet light alone degrades the shielding after about 40 years. "Fortunately, the fiber is the future-proofed asset," he said.
WHAT'S NEXT
In Part 4, "Beyond the Wire," airing Nov. 20, WNCW looks at the skills, the devices and what people can do right now.
Previous installments:
Part 1: The Last Mile (aired Oct. 30)
Part 2: Maps and Money (aired Nov. 6)
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TAGS: Still Waiting, More to the Story, rural broadband, fiber, satellite internet, Starlink, AT&T copper retirement, BEAD, Western North Carolina, N.C. Rural Center, Dogwood Health Trust, NCDIT Broadband Infrastructure Office, WNCW
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