Editor’s note: The conference “Energizing Rural North Carolina: The Building Blocks of Successful Economic Development,” opening today in Pinehurst, will explore how infrastructure, workforce, education, health, and leadership—the five building blocks—shape economic outcomes in rural communities, according to the event organizers from the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC), which is headquartered in Cary.

This is the second of a multi-part story previewing the conference.  (Part one, an overview of the conference’s goals and objectives, is available online.)

Infrastructure

“New businesses require infrastructure,” says Frank Emory, Jr., chairman of the EDPNC board of directors. “There is currently an imbalance of infrastructure availability, particularly in rural North Carolina.”

Yet the term infrastructure can mean so many different things, said Hawkins, so the organizing committee elected to focus on one critical component that impacts the state’s ability to compete globally: broadband access and affordability.

“There is nothing more important than broadband access for rural North Carolina,” said Hawkins. “If we can’t come up with a workable way to improve broadband access in North Carolina, all across our 100 counties, those counties that don’t have access to it are going to fall behind.”

In the past four years, Roanoke Electric Cooperative has invested resources into developing a plan to provide rural broadband access at an affordable rate for the utility’s five-county service area. The project is spearheaded by COO Marshall Cherry, who will share an update and early lessons learned with the attendees of the EDPNC conference.

“The main driver in the whole project is a better way to optimize our grid,” said Cherry. “There is an opportunity for us to help reduce costs and improve the quality of life for residents.”

The cooperative does not generate any of their own electricity, said Cherry, and because they distribute purchased technology, any cost-savings they can provide in optimizing the grid means the less energy they need to purchase for distribution. These savings will be passed on to residents, said Cherry.

It may seem difficult to connect the dots between a five-county electric grid and broadband access, however, by installing and deploying smart devices, the company believes it can harness an incredible cost-savings and operate more efficiently.

Those devices only work when they have access to reliable internet connections, which aren’t exactly available in rural communities. In fact, the FCC reports that nearly 30 percent of census tracts in the United States lack a residential service provider with 25Mb/s speed, and another 48 percent of census tracts have only one option for their ISP, meaning one company essentially has a monopoly on the market, which doesn’t always mean affordable options for residents.

“Incumbent ISPs are largely ignoring these markets,” said Alan Fitzpatrick, CEO of Open Broadband, in an interview last year.

“We’re in a situation where rural citizens do not have access to broadband like their urban friends,” said Cherry. “When individuals do not have access to broadband internet, there are gaps. If an individual does not have access to Internet, they are going to be left behind.”

“There are a lot of implications for education, healthcare, electricity, power, and more,” said Cherry. Without available internet infrastructure, rural counties won’t be able to attract employers to their region, and, even if they did come, residents may not be able to acquire the technology skills needed to gain successful employment or even to apply to open positions, said Cherry.

That’s why the organization began researching technology to deploy more than 100 miles of broadband cables to close the loop in their service area. In the service area, the company services six household electric meters for every mile of electric line, whereas in Duke Energy’s service area, they service 40 per every mile of line, said Cherry.

Based on projections, the utility will be able to provide internet connections at twice the minimum speed considered for broadband at a rate of $45/month for residents in the service area. Additionally, by the time the build is complete, the company will install more than 10,000 smart devices on the grid and provide internet access to roughly one-third of the service area’s 15,000 person population in Bertie, Northhamptom, Hertford, Gates, and Halifax Counties.

Next: Workforce and education