-
Photo by Christopher Lugo/Staff Several locals have to utilize the Scaly Mountain Community Center for faster Internet.
With things on the cyberfront moving forward in Highlands, residents in Scaly Mountain want to make sure they aren’t left behind when broadband comes to town.
President of the Scaly Mountain Community Association Bill Kirkman said the main challenge of getting broadband anywhere in the mountains is because there is so much rock.
“The very best internet that you can get from a reliability and speed aspect is going to be from fiber,” Kirkman said. “It’s hard to put it in the ground. Alternatively, it’s not a great way, but you could do wireless, but the problem up here is the trees. I think it’s just a general reason why it is hard to get internet access in the mountains.”
Another problem they are facing in Scaly is the lack of providers.
“The only provider we have in Scaly is Frontier,” Kirkman said. “You can go with a satellite provider like HughesNet, but they are really expensive and it’s not that reliable. There isn’t any competition, but it is getting better, for sure. In the past, it appeared that there wasn’t enough capacity for Frontier. Residents move in and come back for the summer and try to get on Frontier, but there isn’t enough capacity. It’s frustrating, because we are growing like a lot of the communities around here.”
For residents, it depends how far away they are from the Frontier station for how well their internet works.
“Some people have, what I would say, is mountain acceptable internet, which is nowhere near what would be acceptable if I was in Atlanta or somewhere else, but it’s OK,” Kirkman said. “Then, there are others that have a hard time getting their email. For instance, I’m not too far from the station and I get what I would call crazy slow speeds, six megabytes down to maybe a half up. It is stable and never goes down and we find a way to adapt to it. I’ll get on Zoom calls and it is fine, but I’ll have to use my landline to phone in. You just figure out a way to make it work.”
Through a nonprofit organization, LittleT Broadband Services and Macon County, a fiber backbone is being constructed with Balsam West, which could provide some relief for Scaly Mountain.
“The county has been very supportive with trying to get broadband into our community,” Kirkman said. “They gave money to Balsam West to bring a fiber backbone into the community. So, it comes in from Franklin through Otto and connects with our community center, as well as our fire station. Because Internet is such a popular thing right now, there are a lot of parts that are backordered, so we are still waiting for it to be completed.”
As part of the agreement, Scaly Mountain will set up hotspots from the community center and fire station so people will be able to access the internet.
“In the meantime, while we are waiting on these parts to be brought, we are still using Frontier’s service,” Kirkman said. “It’s just not as fast. With the hotspots, we will be able to have people come to the community center and sit in the parking lot and connect to the WiFi.”
LittleT’s involvement
The original mission of LittleT was to serve the Otto and Scaly communities through direct development, construction and operation of a high-speed broadband network.
“LittleT got started as a continuation of some previous efforts of three of us, and we were looking to try and create an entity that could develop broadband for the area,” Little T founder Jeff Lee said. “The goal behind it was to really create a nonprofit that could secure grants and develop some high speed infrastructure. What we found out after we got involved was that all the grant programs and different opportunities were not structured for a small nonprofit like ourselves. So, our mission changed from trying to be a nonprofit developer to one more of advocacy and support. It became clear that we couldn’t obtain grants on our own, but we could certainly work in the community and partner with internet service providers to try and help promote broadband development.”
Lee said LittleT worked with Macon County to help secure those commercial hotspots that will be functionable whenever the fiber is available.
“As soon as fiber is available, we are going to light up those hotspots,” Lee said. “Initially, that is what is going to be available. The hotspots at the community centers are there to provide relief because service is so limited.”
On June 23, Lee provided an update about the South Macon Broadband Project, which is the first step in constructing the fiber backbone.
“I am happy to report that there has been some progress in recent weeks towards the completion of the new fiber backbone network in the South Macon area. Balsam West and the Otto Community Development Organization signed an easement agreement a couple of weeks ago which will allow Balsam West to place an equipment hut on the Otto Community Center property. A similar agreement has been made between Haywood EMC and Balsam West in Scaly Mountain across from the fire station.
“Equipment huts in Otto and Scaly are necessary to allow completion of the fiber backbone and support expansion into the surrounding communities. With the agreements in place Balsam West has been working on construction of the foundation for the hut in Otto, and plans to start on the Scaly hut next week. With utility location marking complete, we anticipate fiber to be pulled up Firehouse Road to the new hut in Otto in the next week or two. Fiber will follow in similar fashion in Scaly Mountain after the Scaly hut is ready there.
“Once the equipment huts are in place and connected to the backbone, fiber can then be extended to the Otto Community Center, Scaly Mountain Community Center, and the Sky Valley, Scaly Mountain Fire facility. Activation of fiber service to these three facilities will signify that the new backbone is live. Shortly after, our network hotspot contractor Wired Inc. of Franklin will complete the hotspot connections and allow us to start offering public wifi access at these locations, and high-speed fiber service to the Otto and Scaly fire station facilities.”
Other options for funding
One big ticket item that could be beneficial for the Scaly community is NC GREAT grants that should be awarded within the coming weeks.
According to Lee, Under the GREAT Grant program, internet service providers choose project areas and then develop and submit applications for grants. These grants are then used to fund or help fund the development of high-speed broadband for the proposed project areas. The GREAT Grant program for this round capped single applications to a max of $4 million, and the max allocation per county at $8 million. The application window opened at the end of January.
“LittleT Broadband had the unique opportunity to work with Macon County and several broadband providers to help promote and develop applications that would serve our area,” Lee said. “The county’s role for the GREAT program was to do everything possible to encourage providers to become interested in and develop applications for projects within the county, and this round of the GREAT Grant program provided counties with new tools to help attract and encourage providers to participate. LittleT worked closely with the Macon County Broadband Committee to develop strategies for maximizing the use of those tools to attract providers, and then worked directly in support of those provider’s application efforts.”
One of the applications filed was by Balsam West with the hopes of getting funding to branch off of the initial fiber backbone into areas like Scaly Mountain and Otto.
“If they are not given the grant, they are still going to branch off,” Lee said. “It is just going to take a little longer than usual.”
The importance of broadband in rural areas
For Lee and Kirkman, having high speed internet in these rural areas is essential.
“You think about the students that don’t have internet at home, but they have homework,” Kirkman said. “How do they do it? You’re just at a disadvantage. If you can’t research things, or do any of it. There’s a lot of people who want to move to Scaly and work remotely and there are so many opportunities now to do that, but it’s not possible. I’ve heard stories of people that have bought houses and had to sell them because there was no internet. That seems to be less so now, but it’s still an issue.”
Lee said broadband is more than just for entertainment today.
“It’s necessary for education, not only for local schools, but for universities, as well,” Lee said. “It’s a safety issue. A lot of people have basically no connectivity at all and no cell service. So, it’s a public safety issue. We have a large elderly population. So, health and telehealth is extremely important to a lot of folks. That’s why I think broadband is so important. It also helps the economy because it allows a lot of businesses to more actively participate in the current society.”
At the state level legislators are hard at work to bring broadband to rural communities.
Gov. Roy Cooper’s $1.2 billion “Closing the Digital Divide Plan” would give 95 percent of households access to broadband of 100/20 Mbps and will address issues of affordability and digital literacy that affect rural counties. Those efforts will be accelerated by NCDIT’s new Office of Digital Equity and Literacy, a first for North Carolina and a first in the nation.
In March, Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) and Rep. Karl Gillespie (R-Macon) held a meeting at Holly Springs Baptist Church to update the community on bringing more money for broadband.
“Every walk of life needs internet connection,” said Nate Denny, deputy secretary of broadband and digital equity who participated in the meeting along with Angie Bailey, director of the state Broadband Infrastructure Office. Digital providers were also given the opportunity to share what their companies are doing to improve service throughout the region.
“We need to make sure we get our share of the money west of Asheville,” Corbin said.
- By Christopher Lugo