Perquimans County, NC – FOCUS Broadband is now accepting orders for high-speed internet service in the first phases of their Perquimans County broadband project. Residents and businesses located in areas near New Hope Road and Woodland Church Road can now sign up for fiber optic internet service with speeds up to 1 Gigabit. Additional phases in Perquimans County are expected to become available to order in the coming weeks.

“We are excited to now offer our high-speed internet service to the residents of Perquimans County,” said FOCUS Broadband CEO, Keith Holden. “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.”

In 2022, FOCUS Broadband partnered with Perquimans County government to apply for a grant through the North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s (NCDIT) Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) Grant Program. The intention of the grant was to bring much-needed fiber optic internet service to over 1,600 addresses in rural communities near Chapanoke, New Hope, Winfall, and Woodville. The partnership was awarded a $4 million GREAT Grant with matching contributions from both FOCUS Broadband and Perquimans County government to complete the project.

In 2023, FOCUS Broadband was awarded a second $4 million grant through the NCDIT’s GREAT Grant Program to extend fiber optic internet service to an additional 988 homes and businesses in Perquimans County. Once both grants are completed, reliable high-speed internet service will be available to 2,600 addresses in Perquimans County.

These are just the first of several phases in Perquimans County where high-speed internet service will be available this summer from FOCUS Broadband. Construction is currently underway in additional areas of New Hope and New Hope Proper. To help bring high-speed internet to some of these communities, FOCUS Broadband is working with Albemarle Electric Membership Corporation (Albemarle EMC) to use utility poles to deploy aerial fiber optic lines in certain areas of the county. In other parts of Perquimans County, FOCUS Broadband will be constructing an underground fiber optic network to extend internet service to more residents and businesses.

FOCUS Broadband is also utilizing GREAT Grant funds awarded to the company to bring high-speed internet service to rural unserved areas of Chowan County. The company anticipates making orders for internet service available to customers in Chowan County in the coming weeks.

Since 2019, FOCUS Broadband has secured more than $100 million in grant funding from both federal and state grant programs to expand multi-gigabit broadband internet to more than 30,000 homes and businesses in Brunswick, Columbus, Duplin, Robeson, Pender, Hoke, Scotland, Bladen, Chowan, and Perquimans counties.

To find out where FOCUS Broadband currently has made high-speed internet service available to order in Perquimans County, or to put your name on the list to be notified when service in your area becomes available, residents and businesses can call 888-367-2862 or visit www.FasterPerquimans.com.