FOCUS Broadband brings high-speed internet to New Hope, Woodland Church roads

Residents and businesses located near New Hope and Woodland Church roads can now sign up to receive high-speed internet from FOCUS Broadband.

The company is installing high-speed fiber optic lines throughout Perquimans County. The new service will provide residents with internet speeds as fast as 1 gigabit and should continue through the summer.

Construction is currently underway in additional areas of New Hope.

“We are excited to now offer our high-speed internet service to the residents of Perquimans County,” FOCUS Broadband CEO Keith Holden said in a press release. “Connecting residents to reliable, fast internet is what we do, and we look forward to the many positive impacts this service will make on the daily lives of residents.”

FOCUS Broadband is working with Albemarle Electric Membership Corporation to use utility poles to deploy aerial fiber optic lines in certain areas of Perquimans. In other parts of the county, FOCUS Broadband will be running fiber optic lines underground to homes and businesses.

The project’s origin dates to 2022 when Perquimans County partnered with FOCUS Broadband to seek grant funding from the N.C. Department of Information Technology’s “Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology” grant program.

In return, the project was awarded $4 million in GREAT funds to provide fiber-optic internet to more than 1,600 locations in Chapanoke, New Hope, Winfall and Woodville. The GREAT grant does require some matching contributions from FOCUS and Perquimans. GREAT is an acronym for Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology.

The following year, 2023, FOCUS was awarded a second $4 million GREAT grant to extend fiber optic internet service to another 988 homes and businesses in Perquimans. Overall, when the project is complete, FOCUS says reliable high-speed internet service will be available to about 2,600 addresses in Perquimans.

For more information, visit the website focusbroadband.com.