The author, John Marek, is executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.

The county where I worked prior to coming to Anson in 2016 was really two completely different places. The southern part was a suburb of Charlotte where an acre of land sold for the mid-six-figures and there was a Starbucks on every corner. The northern part, on the other hand, was as rural as any place in North Carolina and featured a town where motorized vehicles were prohibited and riders on horseback populated Main Street.

Regarding the availability of “broadband” in this town, we jokingly showed a picture of a horse along with this explanation: “Yes, we have broadband communications in this part of the county. Messages come to town via telegraph and are then delivered to individual households via horse and rider. As you can clearly see, the horse has a BROAD BAND of white across its back.” 

While this obviously absurd example may elicit a chuckle, the general scarcity of high-speed internet in rural areas is not a laughing matter. As our society becomes increasingly dependent on the internet for shopping, communication, entertainment, education and even health care, the “digital divide” between urban/suburban areas with good connectivity and rural areas with limited connectivity has become a major stumbling block to the continued development and economic progress of these communities.

In Anson County, the areas in and around our larger towns have reasonably good internet service available, but outside of these areas – sometimes just a mile or two down the road – service can be expensive, unreliable or even completely unavailable. And we are not alone. 

Across the state, it is estimated that as many as a million rural residents have no effective access to high-speed internet, defined as 3 MB up and 25 MB down. 

Earlier this year, the N.C. legislature loosened regulatory impediments to rural energy cooperatives providing broadband service to unserved and underserved parts of the state. Our local co-op, PeeDee Electric, has expressed an interest in providing such service and is partnering with Anson County, AnsonEDP and RiverStreet to study how such a plan might be implemented. 

Like many rural counties, Anson’s population density makes it a hard sell to commercial for-profit internet communication firms. Overall, the county has only 51 people per square mile, but if the three largest population centers, Wadesboro, Polkton and Lilesville, are removed from that equation, the density for the rest of the county falls somewhere in the teens. With the cost of running a mile of fiber between $25,000 and $30,000, and a mile of copper cable still roughly half that, it is clear that it would be almost impossible to recoup the cost of servicing a widely dispersed populace within a reasonable period of return.

The broadband study, which is being conducted by RiverStreet, is funded by AnsonEDP with the understanding that internet connectivity is a major component of our economic development efforts. The study will map the entirety of the county and will provide recommendations of how coverage can be cost-effectively achieved for the vast majority of residents. For instance, a viable alternative to fiber for far-flung parts of the county may be “fixed wireless,” a strategy which places high-powered transmitters at strategic points and delivers high-speed service to individual households via a dedicated receiver. 

Unlike previous feasibility studies, the RiverStreet document will be an actual implementation plan upon which our partners at Anson County and PeeDee Electric can take action, and is required if the county is to apply for millions of dollars of available federal and state grants for rural broadband expansion. 

Realistically, by the time the study is completed, grants are applied for and awarded and necessary infrastructure is put in place, it will likely be 2021 or 2022 before comprehensive rural broadband service could potentially launch. But as the saying goes: The best time to plant a tree is 50 years ago; the second best time is now. And we have definitely put that seedling in the ground.