GREAT Grant (Federal)

The Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) Grant is a competitive grant program that provides funding to private sector broadband providers to deploy last-mile broadband infrastructure to unserved areas of North Carolina. The original GREAT Grant program was initiated in 2018 and launched in 2019, and subsequently became a recurring state-funded grant program within the NCDIT Broadband Infrastructure Office.

N.C. Session Law 2021-180 appropriates $350 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for the GREAT Grant program. The 2022-2023 funding round may award up to $350 million in federal ARPA funding. 

Awards can be made within eligible economically distressed counties in areas unserved with broadband at speeds of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. Project deployments must provide minimum speeds of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload, scalable to 100 Mbps symmetrical. The program encourages partnerships with counties, nonprofits or other internet service providers. Grants require matching investments from private broadband provider grantees, leveraging funding to deploy infrastructure to N.C. households, businesses and farms in the most rural and remote areas of the state. 

A single grant award shall not exceed $4 million. No combination of grant awards involving any single county may exceed $8 million in a fiscal year. The maximum matching requirement is 50%.

Please submit questions about the GREAT Grant program to greatgrant@nc.gov.