Author: Janine Parker
Much of the conversation around broadband in North Carolina revolves around internet access. However, the use, or adoption, of broadband is at least equally as important. When it comes to adoption, our state has mixed results. North Carolina has been doing fairly well compared to other states in the southeastern region, where broadband adoption has been especially low. However, North Carolina’s broadband adoption rate ranked 39th in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico) in 2015, but has been steadily improving in recent years. What does broadband look like within the state? The answer varies greatly and depends largely on whether you live in an urban or rural area.
Broadband, also known as high-speed Internet access, has now become expected by nearly all Americans; yet according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), millions across the nation still do not have access to this service. Several agencies including federal and state governments, and non-profit organizations have been working together to help increase broadband adoption rates (BAR) throughout the country. Broadband adoption is the use of broadband in places where it is available, and measured as the percentage of households that use broadband in such areas. The National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) at the U.S. Department of Commerce has produced several publications addressing both the broadband adoption rates and the barriers to broadband adoption.
One of the areas identified has been the difference of broadband usage between rural and urban areas. According to John B. Horrigan, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, broadband adoption rates in rural areas lag behind urban areas by almost 10 percentage points. So what does this mean for North Carolina, which has the second-largest rural population in the southeast?
In 2015, North Carolina’s broadband adoption rate was 74.1%, ranking 4th highest among the 12 southeastern states. Virginia was first with 78.6%, followed by Florida at 77.5% and Georgia at 74.8%. North Carolina has seen a roughly 2.3% increase each year in broadband adoption since 2013, when the American Community Survey (ACS) started measuring it.
Within North Carolina, 82 of the 100 counties are identified as rural, and only 11 (13.4%) of those rural counties were at or above the 2015 statewide broadband adoption rate of 74.1%. The top ten counties were almost all urban -- Orange (88.8%), Wake (86.4%), Union (85.4%), Cabarrus (84.4%), Durham (82.9%), Mecklenburg (82.5%), New Hanover (81.4%), Onslow (80.4%), and Buncombe (79.6%) -- with the exception of Stanly (79.4%) that was rural. The bottom 30 counties were all rural with nine counties below 60% -- Warren (59.5%), Halifax (55.7%), Northampton (55.7%), Hertford (55.7%), Duplin (51.6%), Sampson (51.6%), Bladen (50.8%), Columbus (50.8%), and Robeson (49.3%). Despite being at the bottom of NC’s county broadband adoption rates, almost all of these counties are not the top 10 most rural; Warren County is the exception. Cherokee County is the most rural (100% rural), but it was within 5.3 percentage points (68.8%) of the statewide BAR. Greene County, which is the 5th most rural county, had the highest BAR of the top 10 most rural NC counties at 72.6% (1.5 percentage points below NC statewide BAR). Hence, the top 10 most urban counties (77.7%) surpassed the top 10 most rural counties (66.7%), on average, by 11 percentage points.
Examining the state by prosperity zones (PZ), the Southwest PZ had the highest averaged broadband adoption rate at 76.4%, followed by the Southeast PZ (73.1%) and the North Central PZ (72.2%). The Southwest PZ has four of the most urban counties with the highest population density -- Mecklenburg (99% urban), Cabarrus (81% urban), Gaston (80% urban), and Union (73% urban). Therefore, it is inferred why the Southwest PZ has the highest averaged BAR compared to the other prosperity zones – North Central (72.8% urban), Central (67.9% urban), South Central (55.1% urban), Western (49.8% urban), Northwest (46.4% urban), and Northeast (45.4% urban).
So again, what does all this data mean for a rural state like North Carolina?
For NC’s broadband adoption rates, rural counties are lagging behind urban counties; but the state, as a whole, is steadily increasing its broadband adoption rates. Last year, the NC Broadband Infrastructure Office (NC BIO) released the state’s broadband plan. In this plan, one of the objectives is to “increase household adoption rates by over 60% [the whole state] by June 2021”; and they are well on their way to reaching this objective with only a few counties below the state average. NC BIO is collaborating with multiple stakeholders to increase broadband adoption throughout the state; and they are also collecting multiple data points to monitor broadband adoption rates for the state.
A further, in depth, analysis of North Carolina’s broadband can be found in future posts through the series: The State of NC Broadband. For more information on broadband use and availability, visit https://ncbroadband.gov.