North Carolina Department of Commerce (Transferred from Rural Economic Development Center, Inc. (e-NC Authority))
Project Components
State Broadband Capacity Building:
The e-NC Authority will continue to track broadband policy issues for the state, educate state leaders about broadband usage and deployment, serve as a technical resource to state organizations, preserve partnerships with local level broadband technology programs and the Indian Commission, and maintain strong relationships with broadband Internet service providers.
Technical Assistance:
The project will re-establish regional offices in eastern, central, and western areas of the state. Staff will provide direct technical assistance to local communities, assess local resources, and assist in developing broadband plans with these communities to move forward with solutions for broadband deployment and usage. Staff will also strengthen relationships with smaller providers to encourage their participation in data collection activities. In addition, the e-NC authority will convene a two-day working meeting to examine how to best measure the impact of state and national deployment of economic and community development.
Other:
Collaborating with providers, universities and other stakeholders, e-NC will conduct the Lifeline Online research project, which will measure the effect that various levels of training and subsidies have on broadband adoption rates across 270 households in North Carolina. e-NC will evaluate the project’s performance and provide needed data as the federal government considers amending the Lifeline program.
Data Collection, Integration, and Validation:
This project was originally funded for broadband planning activities and two years of data collection. In September of 2010, this project was amended to extend data collection activities for an additional three years and to identify and implement best practices
Address File Development:
The North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (CGIA) will build on the statewide addressing effort that began prior to the 2010 census. CGIA and e-NC will form a working group of local governments to document best practices identified in the first phase and will also develop an automated procedure for filtering the data that has remained unchanged between address file data collection cycles.
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