LittleT Broadband Needs Help

Tony Deakins, LittleT Broadband

LittleT Broadband Services has recently made substantive progress with the county in working with BalsamWest FiberNet to pull backbone fiber from Addison Bridge Road to connect with Haywood EMC’s fiber at Brown Road. That will carry the backbone up into Scaly Mountain, from where additional fiber will be installed to complete the backbone connection to Highlands. We are now focused on the distribution planning, including raising money, funding grants, and other funding vehicles to reduce the actual cost of connecting homes and businesses to the backbone. Also, there are grants that must be ready to leverage that subsidize the monthly billing once connections have been established.

To that end, we are URGENTLY seeking volunteers to work with our board and our partners — Balsam and Haywood — to identify grant/funding opportunities and to develop the applications as required. We urgently need people who have skills, experience and/or good research talents. The success we have with funding will affect how fast we can distribute broadband access services and what the services will ultimately cost.

For more information about volunteering to help, or for questions, go to the littletbroadband.org "Contact Us" page. Thank you for helping us help your community to obtain broadband access!