LINCOLN COUNTY, N.C. — A North Carolina farmer has been hindered by the lack of broadband internet in his area, but relief may be on the way.
North Carolina families remain divided on internet connectivity availability. According to the North Carolina Department of Information Technology, 1.1 million households lack access to high-speed internet.
Recently U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo visited Catawba County, along with Gov. Roy Cooper, to announce fiber manufacturing expansions near Hickory. CommScope and Corning are building a fiber optic cable, which hopes to help close the digital divide faced by millions of families.
Many households do not have internet access because there is no infrastructure to support it.
The secretary’s visit was part of the Biden-Harris administration’s Investing in America tour, which kicked off in Durham.
“We have a tremendous opportunity not just to close the digital divide for millions of Americans, but also to revitalize domestic manufacturing industry, make more products and technologies in America, and create good manufacturing jobs here in Hickory and across the country,” Raimondo said.
“That investment continues by producing the fiber we’re going to use to get everyone connected to the internet right here in America with products made in America,” Raimondo said.
During her visit to North Carolina, Raimondo made a stop in nearby Lincoln County. She met with soybean farmer Tommy Wyant, who is a fifth generation farmer.
Farming equipment has come a long way since Wyant was a child. To help with drying the soy beans during a wet season, Wyant bought a state-of-the-art grain dryer, which has the ability to control the temperature from a cellphone.
“It saves a lot of man hours, from someone having to come up here and kinda keep checking on things, you can control it while I’m on the field except, I can’t do it,” Wyant said.
Broadband isn’t available on his farm, and cell service is terrible, so he can’t capitalize on using his high-tech equipment.
According to the North Carolina Department of Information Technology, 1.1 million households in North Carolina don’t have access to reliable internet because the infrastructure to install it does not exist.
“We’ve been hearing for years that we were going to get broadband and money had been allocated for years that we were going to get it — we just never see it coming,” Wyant said he told Raimondo.
During the secretary’s visit CommScope announced an additional $47 million investment toward expanding its U.S. fiber optic cable manufacturing, including its facility in Catawba, which is already the largest hybrid-fiber-coaxial facility for broadband networks in the world.
According to CommScope, this facility will produce a new rural fiber optic cable that is specifically designed for rural areas, hopefully to help farmers and communities, like the Wyant Farm.
“It’s something we should all have,” said Wyant.
