Rural communities are set to receive $759 million in grants aimed at improving access to high-speed internet in small towns and farm communities.
The grants are part of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law, with $65 billion being geared toward high-speed connectivity. The money will go to 49 recipients across 24 states.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and White House senior adviser Mitch Landrieu made the announcement during a visit to North Carolina. Of the $759 million, $17.5 million will go to North Carolina’s AccessOn Networks, which provides services to 100 businesses, 22 educational facilities, and 76 farms located in Halifax and Warren counties. Both rural counties have predominantly black populations, according to the Associated Press.
“Rural America needs this,” Vilsack said during the visit to North Carolina. “Rural America deserves this.”
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Vilsack added that rural areas tend to be the vacation destination for those living in cities and suburbs and where electricity is generated for cities as well.
Landrieu said rural communities were the “backbone of our nation” and that they had been left behind and underrecognized for too long.
“We all know how essential the internet is in order to access lifesaving telemedicine, to tap into economic opportunity, to connect with loved ones, to work on precision agriculture, and so much more,” Landrieu said. “That’s just beyond unacceptable that that’s not available to rural America.”
The officials said their tour in North Carolina would include visits to rural communities to understand how the grants and internet access can lead to more opportunities.
They met with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who said that the pandemic forced many communities across the state to become more reliant on the internet.
He added that around 1 million North Carolinians are on the wrong side of the digital divide, which is something he hopes the broadband expansion will correct.
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“It tossed us into the future by about a decade — we had to make something good out of something bad,” Cooper said.
