Orange County Identifies Tower Sites  

As a way to increase broadband Internet services in Orange County, North Carolina, county officials have been working with state representatives and the county planners to identify opportunities. “An estimated 15 million Americans, primarily in rural communities, don’t even have access to entry-level broadband in their homes. Forty-one percent of American’s rural schools couldn’t get a high-speed connection if they tried,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wrote in a blog post last November. As a way to remedy this, North Carolina State Representative Verla Insko is working alongside Representative Graig Meyer and state Senator Valerie Foushee. In addition to these efforts, county officials have identified new telecommunication tower sites in the county and are urging the county planners to make changes to tower ordinances. Officials hope to make the process easier for companies that want to build tower. Person County has started a new process to add more emergency telecommunication towers in the area that will have dedicated space for wireless broadband antennas. This is an effort Orange County officials are interested in learning more about as well.