Haywood outlines broadband buildout progress
A milieu of state and federal programs has drastically reduced the number of Haywood County locations without access to reliable, affordable broadband service.
Haywood County government photo
Haywood County Community and Economic Development Manager Hannah White used a Jan. 5 presentation to give commissioners a detailed accounting of where broadband access stands today, how far the county has come since the depths of the digital divide were exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic and what work remains before reliable high-speed internet reaches every single household tucked into the county’s ridges, hollers and remote valleys.
White’s update traced broadband conditions back to August 2020, when availability was largely measured at the census-tract level, a method that often overstated coverage in rural terrain. Under that system, large swaths of Haywood appeared to be served if even a small portion of a tract had access, masking pockets where residents had no functional connection at all.
Maps shown to commissioners illustrated how that approach failed to capture the actual experience of households scattered along winding mountain roads or perched far from existing infrastructure.
Recent data, presented as current through 2024, paints a clearer and more granular picture. Hundreds of individual locations remain unserved, identified not by broad census tracts but by address-level analysis. These locations are dispersed across the county, with heavier concentrations in mountainous areas where steep slopes, long driveways and sparse development make traditional broadband expansion expensive and technically challenging.
To address those gaps, White walked commissioners through a layered patchwork of federal and state programs that together form Haywood’s broadband strategy.
Rather than relying on a single funding source, the county has stacked multiple grant programs, each targeting different categories of unserved or underserved locations and each with its own timelines, providers and technical standards.
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One of the earliest and largest efforts discussed was the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, a Federal Communications Commission initiative designed to extend broadband into rural areas lacking service at minimum speeds of 25 megabits per second downstream and 3 megabits per second upstream.
In Haywood County, that program will eventually cover 5,479 locations with Spectrum as the provider. Spectrum has until 2029 to complete work but is expected to be finished by December 2026.
“It’s kind of focused towards the north and south part of the county — a lot of public land out there — but [RDOF] still was able to serve 5,000 locations,” White explained. “As of December [2025] there are about 3,500 served of that 5,000, essentially.”
Complementing that effort are several rounds of the state’s Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology program. A supplemental GREAT award funded service to 304 locations through Skyrunner and has already been completed.
A later GREAT 2022 award targeted an additional 182 locations, again with Spectrum as the provider and is now scheduled for completion in March 2026. Hurricane Helene and permitting problems delayed the project, White said, which should have been completed already.
Another tranche, known as GREAT to CAB, allowed counties to roll unfunded GREAT applications into the Completing Access to Broadband program, adding 301 locations that have now been completed.
The CAB program itself represents a significant component of Haywood’s current broadband buildout. Through a partnership with the North Carolina Department of Information Technology, CAB 1.0 will extend service to 915 locations, with Skyrunner as the provider and an anticipated completion in October.
“They’ve already made some significant progress with this grant,” said White.
CAB 2.0 adds another 359 locations, also served by Skyrunner, with work expected to conclude by December 2026.
Together, these programs account for the vast majority of previously unserved addresses in the county. A summary chart presented to commissioners showed that roughly 99.6% of identified locations either already had broadband access or have been awarded funding through one of these initiatives.
Of approximately 8,200 total locations analyzed, about three-quarters fall into the category of having had prior access to these programs, while nearly one-quarter are being addressed through grants. Currently, White said, only 121 locations still have not been served, not counting any new buildings that may have been built recently in hard-to-reach areas.
“I don’t know that people understand how monumental of an accomplishment that is,” said Commissioner Jennifer Best. “There were more places that didn’t have it than places that did have it. It’s been good to see these providers do what they said they were going to do. It’s so vital to how we do everything these days.”
White emphasized that even with those gains, the final fraction of locations represents the most difficult and costly phase of broadband expansion. These high-cost, secluded addresses often sit far from existing fiber lines or require extensive construction through rugged terrain. To reach them, the county is looking to stop-gap solutions funded through President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, aimed at filling the holes left after GREAT and CAB investments are fully built out.
Beyond infrastructure, officials also highlighted the role of the federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, funded through Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. In Haywood County, BEAD is expected to serve 660 locations through a mix of providers and technologies, including fiber deployments by AT&T and Spectrum and satellite service from Amazon. Unlike earlier programs, BEAD extends further into the future, with an expected completion date of December 2030, reflecting both its broader scope and its emphasis on long-term planning and adoption.
Maps shown during the presentation underscored the complexity of coordinating these overlapping efforts. Different colors and symbols marked areas covered by RDOF, GREAT, CAB and BEAD reveal a mosaic of service areas that must align without duplication or gaps. White stressed the importance of ongoing data validation to ensure that locations counted as served actually receive functional service at promised speeds.
Residents were also encouraged to make use of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Map, an address-based tool that allows users to see which providers claim to offer service at their location. If a provider is listed but does not actually serve the address, residents can file an availability challenge, a process that can influence future funding decisions and corrections to official coverage maps.
White closed by framing broadband not as a single project with a clear end date, but rather as a continuing public infrastructure effort, similar to roads or water systems. While the county is nearing a point where almost every address will have at least one funded path to service, timelines, construction challenges and provider performance will continue to require close monitoring by county staff and state partners.
“So we’ve gone from thousands not being served to a little over a hundred,” Chair Kevin Ensley said. “I feel like this is the 1920s and 1930s where we’re getting telephone and electricity.”
