Connecting Counties Playbook
User Guide: A Welcome to the Playbook
As a champion of rural broadband access, President Johnson spent her year as NCACC President maximizing the funding opportunities available to make sure that all counties are able to expand broadband access to the underserved and unserved.
This Connecting Counties Broadband Playbook is intended to be an interactive product, not necessarily meant to be read cover-to-cover like a novel. Instead, think of this publication like a manual, a toolkit, or a collection of independent resource modules. The design of the playbook is such that some sections will be more useful to the reader than other sections will be. With this playbook, county leaders can focus in, pursue the strategy that best suits their situation, and make the calls to affect broadband expansion and better serve residents.
The publication is broken up into four sections, each with distinct sets of resources and strategies. These sections are not listed in a specific sequence to be followed and are not meant to represent chronological steps. Instead, it is recommended to take a look at snapshots of each section and determine which sections would be most impactful to pursue first. Depending on the considerations a county has, any of the below sections might be the best place to start. Note that at any point, you may click the Connecting Counties logo at the top middle of the page and you will be returned to this user guide page.
This section is meant to provide a basic foundation of information about broadband, particularly focused on the state of broadband in North Carolina, how counties play a role on broadband projects and how counties can fund broadband projects. This section is meant for county officials, staff, and other stakeholders who may be new to the issue and want to understand what the county role is in broadband and how they can work on this issue. It also includes a definitions guide for commonly used words and acronyms in the broadband sector.
This section is meant to provide a variety of data sources and user guides for how to find data about broadband access and different broadband indicators for a county or across the state. There are different maps and data sources that can be customized to narrow in on data on the topic you may be looking for.
This section is for county officials and county staff who are looking for guidance on how to work with providers to establish and execute successful partnerships for broadband projects. There are resources designed to help counties find out who their active ISPs are, how to connect with them, and how to create an environment of collaboration and cooperation to work on broadband projects.
This section is for county staff who want to implement a public awareness campaign to highlight the different programs for residents to report internet access issues, sign up for affordable internet, and a plan for how to inform the public on how the county is working on broadband.
Throughout the Connecting Counties Broadband Playbook, there are prompts and menus to jump to other sections of the publication. This is intended so that users can quickly navigate between resources and access the table of contents when quick reference is needed to another section. There is no correct or incorrect way to progress through the playbook.
Whether reading a step-by-step guide, viewing a video resource, or browsing a data map, the hope is that each inclusion is beneficial and informative. Now is the time to dive in and start putting together the right gameplan for your community.