Frontier Fiber Progress

Last week I was very encouraged to see Frontier's contractor trucks working their way up our road to install fiber. I knew that Frontier would be building at least to a point where they have grant award locations, but was not sure if they would build any farther than there at this time. I was pleasantly surprised to see them continuing up the road beyond the grant locations, meaning that they will be bringing fiber service to more homes in our valley.

Like many parts of Macon County, we live in an area that was awarded to Charter Communications (Spectrum) through the FCC RDOF program. Though we have seen a few “Spectrum Internet Coming Soon” signs here and there, the Broadband Committee has been told that Charter will not begin building in Macon until after the first of the year. Since Charter has the FCC RDOF award, no other provider can receive federal or state grant funding to build in these areas, and Charter has until 2028 to complete the build - assuming choose to build all locations. The good news is that any provider can build in RDOF awards areas using their own funds, and this is exactly what is happening today with Frontier.

Frontier told the County that they planned to build fiber to many locations beyond just their grant obligations, but until it started happening we had no way of knowing how much of this would actually occur. We do know that Frontier is spending far more to build fiber throughout the County than they are receiving through grants, and it is great to see Frontier making good on that promise in some areas.

The Frontier contractors that we have all seen around the County since last fall are installing what the company refers to as “feeder" fiber, which are the fiber cables that extend from two primary Frontier wire centers out into the community. The contractor like the one installing near our home will only run the primary “feeder” fiber cable down the road. Another contractor or Frontier directly will come back later to run drop fiber extensions to individual homes. If the fiber has been run passed your home, it is highly likely you will be offered fiber service. It is in Frontier’s financial interest to connect as many homes as possible to help the business case for their investment. Prior to Frontier connecting homes, those affected should see an advertising blitz to get connected.

Many that have or have had Frontier DSL service continue to voice concerns about less than ideal experiences with DSL and/or Frontier. However, dealing with Frontier will only be required in the short term, as Frontier is merging with Verizon and that merger is expected to become final before the end of the year. So, those accepting fiber service from Frontier will ultimately be Verizon customers. It will remain to be seen what changes come as Verizon takes over, but for those with Verizon mobile service it is likely that bundling options with phone and internet will become available.

Great to see actual progress in our county!

StarLink and Rewrite of Broadband Grant Rules

Jeff Lee, LittleT Broadband

I am subscribed to a number of broadband discussion groups and forums. A discussion topic that has surfaced in recent months relates to StarLink and anticipated changes in the upcoming broadband grant rules from the NTIA.

As I mentioned in previous posts and presented to the commissioners on May 13th, the current administration has changed leadership at the NTIA which is the federal agency responsible for the $42.5B BEAD grant program. The BEAD program was intended to bring sweeping relief to rural areas that still do not have high speed internet available. The NTIA has spent the last 3 years working with states to allocate funding fairly for each state and to approve grant programs for each state that will be used to disribute these funds. The new leadership at the NTIA has idicated that it will be making changes to the rules which govern how these funds will be distributed, a process which is adding delay and uncertainty to the outcome of these program.

One rule that is anticipated to change is the type of broadband technology favored by the grant program. The current rules and programs in most states favor grant appllications that will deploy fiber, which is considered the gold standard and the technology that can deliver the performance and growth needed over the next 10-20 years. All of the broadband grants projects currently under construction in Macon County are deploying fiber, and most all broadband grant programs since 2020 have favored fiber as a preferred solution by more heavily weighting this technology when scoring grant applications. Though fiber is favored, other technologies are stilled allowed when applications with fiber solutions are not available.

A technology expected to receive increased favor or weighting is satellite, which includes broadband services such as SpaceX StarLink. Commissioner Shields specifically asked about StarLink at the end of the Broadband Update discussion during the last BOC meeting on May 13th. When spending taxpayer dollars on grants to invest in infrastructure, most states, counties, and municipalities want to invest grant funding in rural areas for which there is confidence in long term growth and reliablity. They also want to invest in infrastructure that will place their rural residents and businesses on equal footing with those in large metro areas.

I personally have been using the StarLink service for about three years, and it is hands down better than DSL and the other satellite internet services currently available. It has made an incredible difference in our household, and I am thankful it has been available. Though I feel StarLink is an excellent internet service for those that need it, can afford it, and can receive it at their location, I do not feel it should be given equal weight when considering broadband technologies for a rual broadband grant. Though StarLink is a great solution for many folks, it cannot and does not deliver the equivalent performance and experience as a fiber broadband connection. When fiber becomes available at my home, I will not hesitate to drop StarLink and switch over to fiber reguardless of the provider.

We want the residents and businesses of Macon County to have access to the same technologies as those in metro areas. For that reason I feel that we must continue to advocate for keeping fiber as the gold standard of broadband services to which all Macon residents and business should have access. Fiber needs to continue being the most heavily weighted technology when considering applications for grant funding. This will help insure that our rural residents and businesses have the same service opportunities as in metro areas.

Update for the Macon County Board of Commissioners 05-13-25

Jeff Lee, LitteT Broadband

 Last Tuesday, I had the opportunity to provide an update on broadband projects around Macon County to our Board of Commissioners. You can find a link to the presentation below.
 

One update since I prepared these slides is that I received an email from a representative of Charter Communications. I was informed that at this time Charter is busy completing buildout of their commitments in Haywood and Jackson counties. They hope to begin construction in Macon County by early 2026.

Macon County Board of Commissioners Presentation 05-13-25  

My home is not on any broadband grant list, now what?

This question has come up for many when they realize that construction of new fiber broadband may not reach their location. Are there any solutions and will more help or grants be coming in the future?

Seems like a good time to talk about alternative solutions for homeowners and what the future holds for broadband grants. There are also services available for business owners, but I will save that topic for a future article.

Internet services available now for homeowners (residential subscribers) vary depending on your location. Assuming you are not in an area that is currently serviced by Optimum, one of the Highlands service providers, Balsam West, or will be serviced in the future through a previously awarded grant program, your options are limited to either a satellite provider or one of the wireless services.

Satellite and Wireless Internet

The best satellite service on the list is StarLink. I say “best” because StarLink offers the fastest speeds, lowest latency, and the fewest weather disruptions of any satellite provider, all with no data caps. Starlink has now been around about four years, and many residents in Macon County without access to other Internet services are connected to it, including me. StarLink is a great solution if you do not have access to faster hard line services, you have enough clear sky view for the satellite signal reception, and you can afford the entry cost. Unfortunately, StarLink availability in our area is closed at the moment. Part of this is due to Helene, but there are simply too many StarLink customers in our area and not enough satellites and ground stations to service them. Hopefully this situation will change in the future as more folks impacted by Helene get back on cable or fiber, and as SpaceX is able to put more satellites and ground stations in service.

The other two satellite providers are Hughesnet and Viasat. There are many mixed reviews about these services which range from poor performance, frequent outages, data caps, etc. But these services do work well for many folks and are still an option if there are no others.

If you wish to learn more about the various satellite internet services in detail, PC Magazine recently published a very comprehensive article available here.
https://www.pcmag.com/comparisons/starlink-vs-hughesnet-vs-viasat-which-satellite-internet-provider-is-best

Beyond satellite, there are a number of wireless Internet providers, depending on where you are located. If you have good signal from a cell tower, you may be able to get fixed wireless service from Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T. In our area this is mainly limited to the major highway corridors and in Franklin. There are also a few pockets of wireless Internet service available from companies like Sky Runner and BalsamWest. Unfortunately, the coverage by these providers is pretty limited to specific communities.

Future Broadband Grants

For those who want or need a fiber connection to their home and are not in an area that will be impacted by any of the already awarded grant programs, there are new grant programs on the horizon. Though this can provide some hope, the future of these programs is uncertain at the moment.

During the previous administration, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) was passed into law, and $42.5 billion from this bill was allocated for rural broadband expansion. These funds were placed under jurisdiction of the federal agency NTIA for distribution through a program called BEAD. Under the current BEAD rules defined by the NTIA, the funds are to be divided up amongst the states and administered by state broadband programs. The state of North Carolina is designated to receive $1.53 billion, which will be used to fund future rounds of the existing GREAT and CAB grant programs.

Unfortunately, current political and economic uncertainty is having a ripple effect on all government agencies and business sectors. The new administration is changing leadership at the NTIA, the FCC, and other agencies, and as with many agencies within the federal government grant programs are on hold. It is unclear what changes will be made to the NTIA BEAD program or if any of these funds will still be made available to the states after program changes are complete.

Broadband organizations, providers industry-wide, and state broadband offices are all waiting to see what happens next. Of course rumors and speculation vary widely from all funds being reclaimed by the fed to only minor rule changes, but no one knows what the final outcome will be. Until NTIA reorganization (leadership changes and head count reductions) and BEAD funding decisions are complete, future broadband grant programs funded through BEAD are on hold. If you feel these funds should be spent as legislated by Congress for rural broadband expansion, now would be a good time to communicate this desire to your senators and representatives.

Broadband Update for Macon County
April 2025

Jeff Lee, LitteT Broadband

January 2024 was a long time ago. Much has happened since my last post and though I have not made updates to this news blog for a while, I have been working to respond to folks asking questions about their specific areas. Here is an update to the broadband related happenings in Macon over the past year.

Frontier GREAT Grant

Many of you will recall that Frontier was awarded a grant to serve 2700 locations throughout the County by the State of North Carolina. Frontier completed all engineering and planning work and their contractor has been busy deploying fiber county-wide. If you have ventured down the GA Road, you may have seen their material and equipment staging area just south of Coweeta Church Rd. We continually receive reports of fiber construction activity as they complete what Frontier refers to as the “feeder” fiber - the fiber that connects communities with the central wire centers or hubs. As these “feeder” fiber sections are completed, Frontier will be working to connect homes and business. If Frontier connects your home or busiess, please let us know. Though the project was scheduled to be completed next Month, delays due to Helene recovery and other factors prompted Frontier to request an extension from the state. We are hopeful that much of this project will be completed by the end of 2025.

BalsamWest GREAT Grant

This grant award was received by BalsamWest for extension of fiber service to 200+ locations in the Otto, Scaly Mountain, and unincorporated Highlands areas. BalsamWest has completed all planning and engineering and has all materials staged, but the deployment has been delayed by permitting with Haywood EMC and the USFS. Some of permitting delays also stem from Helene recovery and staffing reductions at USFS are now contributing to delays nation-wide. Like Frontier, BalsamWest has requested an extension from the state and we are hopeful that construction work will begin soon.

Frontier CAB Grant

Some of you may have seen the news back in March of this year that Frontier was awarded and additional grant through the North Carolina CAB grant program. This new grant will allow Frontier fiber service extension to 411 locations in the Sanderstown area of Macon County. The CAB grant will be synergistic with fiber deployment already underway nearby from the earlier GREAT grant. This new project is expected to complete by the end of 2026.

Charter RDOF Subsidy

Charter Communications (doing business as Time Warner Cable of North Carolina) won the FCC RDOF auction for all eligible census blocks in Macon County. They began deploying fiber in other parts of the state in 2022, and some of you may have noticed signs here and there in the area that say "Charter Spectrum Coming Soon". Though they have been working in Haywood and Jackson counties, we have yet to see any activity by Charter or their contractors in Macon. Assuming plans do not change Charter has until 2028 to complete the project under the current FCC rules, though it is unclear how rising costs and uncertainty in the economy and at the FCC will affect their project in Macon. If you see any fiber construction by Charter in your area, please let us know.

Nantahala Lake Public WiFi

The project to extend fiber to 5 County facilities and offer public WiFi in the Nantahala Lake community was completed in mid 2024. Public WiFi is now available at the following locations:

  • Nantahala Fontana Library Branch and Community Center
  • Nantahala Volunteer Fire & Rescue main station
  • Nantahala Volunteer Fire & Rescue substation (near Nantahala School)
  • Nantahala EMS
  • Nantahala Recreation Center

Cowee School Public WiFi

This is a new project that is just getting started. As part of the Frontier GREAT grant program, Cowee School will be connected to fiber within the next few months. We are currently working with Cowee School Arts & Heritage organization to upgrade the network infrastructure within the school so that public WiFi service can be offered to the community when the fiber arrives.

How Much Will It Cost to Connect?

Jeff Lee, LitteT Broadband

I recently saw a Rant&Rave in the Franklin Press talking about the cost of broadband connection fees.
 
"It is good broadband is getting extended to under-served areas of the county, but the connection fee of $1,500 is a barrier for most households.”
 

Seeing this prompted me to write this article in hopes of clarifying a few facts about the broadband expansion projects under way in our county. The real answer to the question in the title is "It Depends".

There are two types of broadband expansion projects: projects privately funded by individual providers and projects funded by state grants and federal subsidies.

Privately Funded Projects

The South Macon and Nantahala broadband expansion projects are examples of projects kicked off through some action and by Macon County, but must ultimately be financed through private funding. 

In the case of South Macon, the County provided a grant (back when it was still legal for counties to do so) to help kickstart the construction of a fiber backbone into the South Macon area. Without the existence of that backbone, no expansion was even possible. Ultimately however, the financial burden to connect homes and businesses to this backbone fall on BalsamWest. BalsamWest is actively working with communities, businesses, and individual residents to get connected. Unfortunately the cost to reach many of these communities from the backbone is high, and these communities and residents are being asked to defray some of the investment cost through a connection fee. The actual connection fee charged typically depends on how many homes/businesses are being connected within a given area.

The Nantahala expansion project is just getting underway. As counties in NC are no longer legally allowed to offer grants to encourage broadband construction, the County contracted BalsamWest to build fiber and connect 5 County anchor institution facilities. These facilities vitally need the connectivity for public safety, and once the fiber is complete will offer public wifi to help provide some community connectivity. To expand into the community beyond these specific 5 connections requires private funding from BalsamWest. After completion of the project initiated by the County, BalsamWest will begin to work with surrounding communities to provide fiber service. Some of these communities and individual residents will likely be asked to pay a connection fee to defray additional construction costs.

There are other expansion projects within Macon that were not initiated by the County but by individual providers. Projects developed by individual providers on their own are typically chosen and designed to meet some basic business return on investment criteria. Internet service providers are businesses that must generate a profit to remain in business. The connection fee amounts charged in projects such as these will depend on the provider, how they have chosen to fund the project, and how they intend to make a return on this ivestment.

Grant and Subsidy Funded Projects

There are currently 3 grant and subsidy funded broadband projects that will be impacting Macon County. With several additional grant programs kicking off, we hope to add more projects like these in Macon.

  • GREAT Frontier Award - Frontier is finishing up their design work and plans to begin construction in the next month or so. This project will connect 2700 homes and businesses by Q2 2025.
  • GREAT BalsamWest Award - BalsamWest is working on planning and design and intends to begin construction by the end of the summer. This build will serve 263 residences in the South Macon area by Q3 2025. Macon County was pleased to see this grant awarded as it leverages earlier investment in the South Macon project.
  • RDOF Charter Award - Charter Communications received subsidy awards nation-wide as part of this program. They are busy building in Haywood and Jackson counties and have indicated they plan to reach and begin construction in Macon County later this year. The Charter RDOF project is intended to provide service to over 8000 homes and businesses within the County, and they hope to complete their build in 2027.
All of the above programs will offer connection to awarded locations at no additional cost beyond the monthly price of service. This is required as part of the grant or subsidy agreements, which means that more than 11,000 Macon County residents will ultimately receive a high-speed broadband with NO connection fee.

Nantahala Broadband Expansion Project

Jeff Lee, LittleT Broadband
 
We appreciate the recent work by Thomas Sherrill of the Franklin Press in his effort to provide an overview of broadband expansion efforts in Macon County. Though Macon County has a number of projects "in the works", for many of us without or with limited access to high-speed internet it is hard to be patient as we wait for some of these project to begin connecting homes and businesses.
 
One such project that was initiated by Macon County in 2023 is the Nantahala Broadband Expansion project. After requesting  permission from the Board of Commissioners in the fall of 2022 and receiving approval in January of 2023, the Macon County Broadband Committee released a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking a provider to begin deployment of fiber broadband services in the Nantahala Township. 
 
Though the initial intent of the proposed project was to use County general funds in the form of a grant to kickstart this broadband effort similar to the project initiated for south Macon in 2020, within a week of the RFP release the County was notified of changes in the NC statutes governing ways that counties were allowed to use grants. To avoid entanglement with the new NC statute which restricts county’s abilities to offer grants for broadband expansion, the Broadband Committee changed the scope of the proposed project and revised the RFP. This revised RFP requested proposals to extend fiber broadband service to five (5) County facilities that serve the Nantahala township as anchor institutions with the goals of creating public WiFi hot spots, and improving public safety. Rather than offering a grant, the County’s new request was for the direct procurement of service to the listed 5 facilities, which included:
 
  • Nantahala Volunteer Fire & Rescue - Main Station, Wayah Rd.
  • Nantahala Volunteer Fire & Rescue - Substation, Winding Stair Rd
  • Nantahala EMS - Junaluska Rd
  • Nantahala Recreation Center - Junaluska Rd
  • New Nantahala Library and Community Center - White Oak Ln
BalsamWest and Charter Communications provided responses to the RFP, and after thorough review of the proposed solutions and timelines, at the recommendation of the Broadband Committee the Board of Commissioners approved the selection of BalsamWest to implement the project.  The Board further gave permission to the Committee to begin negotiations with BalsamWest and produce a formal agreement. The agreement was approved by the Board in September, which called for the County to pay BalsamWest $350,000 in non-recurring connection charges to construct the fiber network and $9,552 in an initial lump sum to cover internet service to the 5 facilities for the first year.
 
Since the execution of the formal agreement in September, BalsamWest has been working to complete engineering plans, acquire materials, seek permit approvals, and coordinate construction plans with a fiber contractor. At this time the permit process is mostly complete and BalsamWest hopes to begin fiber construction next month, January 2024. A representative from BalsamWest will be making an update presentation to the Macon County Board of Commissioners at the January 9th Board meeting.
 
To complement the fiber construction work which will connect the 5 Nantahala County facilities, the County has contracted LittleT Broadband to coordinate and administer the procurement and installation of the network equipment required at each facility to provide the internet and public WiFi capabilities. Through a Request for Quotations process LittleT has secured a network systems provider to procure and install equipment, and has applied for a broadband adoption grant through the Southwest Commission on behalf of Macon County which will be used to cover the equipment costs. We are excited to see this broadband expansion project come together. With a little luck on weather and equipment lead times, we are hopeful to see this project completed in Q2 of 2024.
 
Discussions have already begun on further broadband expansion in the Nantahala area after completion of this initial effort. The creation of this initial fiber network is just the stepping stone needed to support further expansion.