When: January 13th from 10:00 – 12:00 p.m.
Learn about what’s going on in your county, state, country, and how you can be a part of a more digitally equitable North Carolina.
We will start the planning at this event, so share with all your interested partners in digital equity.
Contact Sara Nichols at sara@landofsky.org for more information.
Digital Inclusion Event Registration
This project is made possible by the generous support of BAND-NC Institute for Emerging Issues.
The election is behind us. What does the future of broadband have in the future with the Biden Administration?
Listen to the discussion on broadband and the FCC policy future:
The NC Broadband Survey is designed to gather information on locations without adequate internet access and speeds in our community.
Your feedback directly impacts grant and infrastructure funding in your community.
Broadband is critical infrastructure for healthcare in Western North Carolina.
Help us get connected by taking the North Carolina Broadband Survey.
If we can utilize telehealth then the patients can have a provide visit at their home.
Tammy Cody, Health Director – Madison County
The NC Broadband Survey is designed to gather information on locations without adequate internet access and speeds in our community.
Your feedback directly impacts grant and infrastructure funding in your community.
Terri Wells talks about how fiber broadband provides tools to minimize a #digitaldivide at the Sandy Mush Community Center.
Fiber and broadband connectivity are imperative for digital inclusion in our communities.
Bringing high-speed, free internet to the Sandy Mush Community Center has been a life-changer.
Terri Wells
A community center is hub that can provide assistance for education, telehealth, employment, entertainment, and more.
Support the Western North Carolina Broadband Project.
Our WNCBP Advisory Team, including Terri Wells; are advocating for the timeless investment of fiber optics in our communities.
You’ve been asking questions- we’re paying attention. 2021 will bring a host of changes to policy, funding, technology, and more.
Join us on March 2nd for our annual broadband leadership summit as we hear from local, state, and national leaders on what those changes will bring.
We will be hearing from:
Paul was part of the leadership team at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2009-12 and 2016-17, serving as Chief of its Office of Strategic Planning, with a focus on merger reviews, spectrum policy, and broadband, including work on the National Broadband Plan. He is now a senior partner with Quadra Partners consulting and a member of President Biden’s Broadband Transition Team.
Walter was Chief of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Division of the FCC from 2009 to Jan. 2019. He is now a senior partner with Danu consulting. He is a leading expert in new broadband technologies.
Dan has served the public for 25 years as a budget advisor to Gov. Easley, President of the Golden Leaf Foundation, and interim Chancellor of East Carolina University. He currently is president of Dan Garlach LLC and a consultant to the Dogwood Health Trust.
Jeff earned his Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from UNC-Chapel Hill and his J.D. from Western Michigan University. Since January 2015 he has been the Director of the Broadband Infrastructure Office (BIO). BIO leads the statewide initiative to expand high-speed internet access for all North Carolinians.
There will also be information from several providers in the region including Charter, Skyrunner, ERC, and French Broad Electric Co-op.
And more……
This event will be held from 10-noon with optional breakout sessions from noon-1pm.
Register for this virtual event today! Spaces are limited.
Date: March 2nd
Presentations: 10-12
Breakout sessions: 12-1
Cost: Free
For questions related to this event reach out to
2020 escalated the conversation around digital inclusion and we want to make sure we know what’s going on across WNC. Please let us know who you are and what your organization is doing by completing this brief survey. We will present an update to this project at the March 2nd Summit.
When the Governor made the decision to close schools late on Friday, March 13, 2020 BCS made arrangements for all of our K-5 students to pick up their 1:1 device March 16-17 (BCS was already 1:1 K-12 with all 6th – 12th graders taking devices home) and began virtual “remote learning” on Wednesday, March 18, 2021 after providing guidance and training for staff.
Over 300 teachers who did not already use a Learning Management System (LMS) were trained on Friday, March 13, 2020 before the governor’s announcement in anticipation of the changes.
We had a homework hotspot (cellular data) program with around 800 students assigned mobile hotspots (600 of which were assigned to high school students) with limited LTE data plans.
Today we have 2800 homework hotspots with the majority now having unlimited high speed data plans. We quickly learned that limited data plans did not support multiple Zoom or Google Meet sessions per day. We also learned that several areas in the county did not have adequate cellular coverage to support homework hotspots. Key areas are Broad River, Sandy Mush and certain areas of Fairview, but there are smaller pockets without cellular coverage throughout the county (e.g. areas in the Leicester area and even within the Asheville city limits).
We identified between 50 and 100 families that had essentially no access to wired or wireless high speed broadband. BCS partnered with Skyrunner and Charter to connect approximately 15 families, but unfortunately the majority of these 50-100 families did not have line of sight to a Skyrunner tower or did not live close enough to a Charter fiber line to get service. Some of these families leverage Wi-Fi at places like our Public Libraries, Broad River Fire Department or Sandy Mush Community Center, as well some travel to family and friends for Wi-Fi.
We did work with the Buncombe County Local Government to gain permission for Skyrunner to place equipment on the Broad River tower. Buncombe County Local Government in partnership with the ACS & BCS Foundation and the Housing Authority are partnering with Skyrunner to provide free Wi-Fi to each HA residence.
One key takeaway was that current satellite Internet options are less than ideal in terms of speed and latency to support virtual instruction.
We also increased staffing for our Technology Help Desk to accommodate a significant increase in support requests and provide support in English and Spanish. We provided custom training to all instructional staff including Best Practices for Remote Learning and specific Learning Management System courses for Seesaw (K-2), Google Classroom and Canvas.
Digital Learning in partnership with Curriculum, Student Services and Special Services created a Remote Learning Guide for teachers. This guide was based on data from the Friday Institute and adapted for our school system. It is continually updated as we learn more about remote learning. Digital Learning created a Virtual Days website for parents, students, teachers and staff to support remote learning. Our BCS Virtual Academy was expanded to accommodate new applicants. Digital Learning created online tutorials and professional development (BCS Digital Learning YouTube Channel) and Language Services translated tutorials into Spanish and Russian. Teachers were required to complete remote learning and LMS training at the beginning of this school year. Weekly optional live virtual trainings are available and recordings are posted on our YouTube channel. Continuing education credits are given for the trainings.
We have learned a great deal due to this unprecedented pandemic. One thing is for sure, our staff and students are resilient and they have, for the most part, adapted to online learning during this challenging time while also becoming more technologically savvy.
Barry Pace, Director of Technology, Buncombe County Schools
Our Western North Carolina Broadband Team Leader, Kevin Jones:
Looks like several WNC counties will be getting around $45M in RDOF funding.
Kevin Jones
Stagg Newman, Retired FCC Technologist and also a WNC Broadband Project Team Lead adds:
These grants help a bit. In Buncombe County, we have estimated that we have at least 15,000 Households without available future proof broadband service as defined in the Buncombe County RFP. These federal grants only address less than 1500 lines in Buncombe County, so less than 10% of the problem. I think the situation is similar in Henderson County and probably in other counties. So a small step in the right directions. The problem is most of the unserved areas do not qualify as totally unserved census blocks under the FCC Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF). Congress mandated in 2019 that the FCC fix their mapping problem but only funded the FCC to do so in December of 2020. It will likely take the FCC at least two years to do so. The next $10 B of RDOF money will not be available until after the FCC fixes the maps.
Stagg Newman
In the WLOS video, Senator Kevin Corbin talks about the importance of broadband in Western North Carolina
Dr. Shelley White, President of Haywood Community College also references in the WLOS video the broadband client-access benefits for their Small Business Center.
Hodge, R. (2021, February 16). About $45 million in federal grants will help expand broadband in WNC. WLOS; WLOS. https://wlos.com/news/local/federal-grants-to-help-rural-counties-expand-broadband
As a regular City of Asheville bus rider, Marc Czarnecki is happy to see that the ART (Asheville Redefines Transit) bus station now has free public Wi-Fi. Riding the bus now really requires an individual to check the schedule frequently. There are multiple different scheduling tools available online for planning your bus trip departure time, which bus to get on, arrival time, etc.
Some of Marc’s smartphone apps to assist in effectively riding the ART bus public transportation include the following. They can now be downloaded at the bus station.
When any individual travels, their time is important. Understanding how internet the ART Bus Station public Wi-Fi is listed below with a screen shot of the speedtest results using the FCC Speedtest App.
If you are in a hurry at the Asheville ART Bus Station; I would not consider the above results acceptable to quickly download apps and check bus statuses.
The newly updated interior bus lobby does have a few plugs to charge your mobile device if needed.
As an instructor at Asheville-Buncombe Community College Continuing Education, I see students mostly in the 50+ demographic who don’t have technology support readily available to them. During this week’s Apple iPhone class at the Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, Ferguson Workforce Building; students shared stories and I answered several questions related to broadband.
The smallest computer that most of us own is a smartphone. It depends on broadband to connect to cloud-based services; including location-sharing features such as weather forecasts and timing information. Our mobility with the smartphone requires data from cellular towers, as pictured.
These cell towers require infrastructure including electricity and fiber optic cables to connect to internet servers. Although cellular data provides internet connectivity, usually at slower speeds than a home or business wired terrestrial broadband connections; with the topography of Western North Carolina, can wireless services provide more digital inclusion?
With mobility comes the awareness that a user’s cellular data plan is expensive and can have data caps. Additionally, ‘unlimited data plans’ usually have data-throttle thresholds where cellular connectivity speeds are lowered. Thus a mobile device user is attracted to ‘free WiFi.’ Speed testing a ‘free WiFi’ location will also give you a indicator of how fast data is exchanged at the location, thus making a pleasant or not-so pleasant experience.
Security and privacy become pro & con considerations where ‘free WiFi’ is located.
The Western Carolina Broadband leadership team is here to advocate for ‘future-proof’ broadband investments.
Please email the WNCBP team with questions or comments.
New to the Ookla Speedtest app on iOS is a feature to specifically test your broadband network’s ability to stream video.
The Apple iPhone (iOS) Ookla Speedtest app has a feature measuring the ability to stream video and at what resolution:
Feedback on Marc’s iPhone 7 on the Speedtest app – Video:
Download the Speedtest iOS app by Ookla here
Porter, J. (2021, February 8). Speedtest app now measures your network’s ability to stream video. Theverge.com; The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/2/8/22272018/speedtest-video-streaming-benchmark-4k-1440p-1080p-ookla-ios
Providing broadband throughout Western North Carolina will require the consideration of viable options.
SpaceX is now planning:
Can it deliver these services in addition to acceptable broadband?
The WNC Broadband Project Team is receptive to feedback from any WNC SpaceX user. Please email spacex@wncbroadband.org with your purchase feedback of SpaceX Starlink services with information about what community your dish resides.
Brodkin, J. (2021, February 5). SpaceX plans Starlink phone service, emergency backup, and low-income access. Ars Technica; Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/02/spacex-plans-starlink-phone-service-emergency-backup-and-low-income-access/