The university said that five students from East Carolina University are helping a wireless broadband company in Grifton improve service in eastern North Carolina.
HarvestBeam Inc. has been given a $199,000 grant by the USDA to study internet access in low-income, rural areas in the eastern part of the state.
In March, HarvestBeam’s owner Jessica Zufolo told Grifton officials that the company would use some of the money to find out more about the quality and availability of internet service in 12 communities across six counties in eastern North Carolina.
Kristen Myers, chair and professor of Sociology at ECU, helped get ECU students to work on the project. “Broadband access is crucial for many reasons, and without the internet, people are cut off from all sorts of important resources,” she said.
The award will also be used to send out broadband coverage polls and bring together community members and leaders to talk about how available internet service is and how happy customers are with the services that are already there.
Zufolo said that keeping track of the real level of access and connectivity among rural businesses, farms, and residents is important because it helps the North Carolina State Broadband Office figure out where in the area people need affordable and effective internet service.
The grant’s purpose is to find places where people don’t have enough access to the internet so that the federal government can spend money to improve connections and facilities.
ECU News Service reports that Zufolo promised in her grant proposal to hire ECU students as paid interns and teach them how to do their own study. Chris Bobbitt, who graduated in May with a degree in anthropology, was hired this spring.
So were Beck Squier, an undergraduate majoring in psychology; Oriana Corbett, a graduate student majoring in sociology; Cooper Hilbert, an undergraduate majoring in both economics and community and regional planning; and Noah Biggs, an undergraduate majoring in economics.
Bobbitt told ECU News Services that he thinks it’s important to fix the problems that rural areas have with digital equity.
He said, “By building new fixed wireless networks and expanding broadband access, we’re not just providing a service; we’re giving these communities the tools they need to thrive in the digital age.”
“It gives back to the community and gives them power, which makes it easier for them to get to jobs, schools, and health care.” This project shows how technology can help close gaps and make society more fair to everyone.
Corbett said the experience taught her a lot about broadband access in rural areas and the problems that come with it for low-income areas. She also learned about how the lack of reliable and affordable broadband service has slowed down many towns in Pitt County and other places.
Her job is to correctly record what rural households receive from their current ISP compared to what those providers report to the FCC and the state. This gets to the heart of the problem, she said.
“Asking residential, anchor institution, and business customers in all 13 communities what they are experiencing and paying will give state and federal broadband officials a much more accurate picture of what it’s really like to not have good connectivity.”
Hilbert said that he and his family have experienced personally how hard it is to not have reliable internet.
“Digital equality is something I care a lot about,” he said. “When my mom had to move back to her hometown to take care of our grandparents, she had a hard time for years trying to get internet service. That’s how I learned what it was like to live in an area that broadband companies didn’t cover.”
“It can be insulting, and I think a lot of people don’t really know how bad coverage is in some of these places,” Hilbert said. “These are diverse communities. There are people who work from home and need network access for their jobs, and there are families with kids who need the internet to do their homework and get to educational resources.”
This is how they make a living, and hearing that so many people have been left behind in a world that’s becoming more digital faster than ever breaks my heart.