MATT CHAPMAN
Staff Writer
Lincoln County state Rep. Jason Saine has co-sponsored a bill designed to equip rural communities with high-speed internet.
“This is an opportunity for local governments to partner with private enterprise to help spread broadband in a very directed way if there’s a need for infrastructure,” Saine said. “This does not allow cities and counties to become internet service providers, but what it does is help find a way to partner and defray some of the cost where there’s need for infrastructure.”
If passed, the law would become known as the BRIGHT Futures Act for its intent to connect unserved areas of North Carolina to the markets of Broadband, Retail online services, Internet of things, GridPower, Health care and Training and education. The bill would also allow the North Carolina Department of Commerce to provide grants or loans aimed at accelerating innovation and investment in digital infrastructure.
The passage of the BRIGHT Futures Act could have a direct impact on Lincoln County, where some of the more rural areas in the western part of the county lack access to high-speed internet. There are also pockets in the Iron Station and Catawba Springs townships where broadband deployment isn’t up to par, according to Saine.
“A new West Lincoln library could be impacted if the new location is a small distance from a major broadband connection,” Saine said. “If there’s no service there at that moment we might be able to partner with a private entity, whether it be Charter or AT&T, to get a higher-speed line out there. In so doing, there would likely be a higher-speed line going in front of homes and neighborhoods so it would help spread high-speed broadband to residential areas in that sense. We’re not here to compete with private enterprise, but more so to partner with them to spread broadband when there’s a good case to be made.”
The public and private partnerships created through the BRIGHT Futures Act would help fund infrastructure expansion into rural areas where private internet service providers have decided that it’s not cost effective to supply high-speed internet. The bill aims to attract economic development to some of the less populated areas of North Carolina and the internet connections are also necessary for telemedicine, which helps eliminate distance barriers for medical services that might not be available in distant rural communities.
The BRIGHT Futures Act was filed earlier this month and has been sent to the House Committee on Energy and Public Utilities for review. A companion bill has been filed in the state Senate by Sen. Wesley Meredith, a Cumberland County Republican.
