Our work

Two decades of getting communities connected.

We started inside North Carolina's state broadband office, took that experience to Appalachia, and now work with communities, states, universities, funders and providers across the country.

CurrentApril 2024 to June 2026

LISC

Rural LISC Broadband Planning Help Hub

Through LISC's Broadband Planning Help Hub, part of the National Broadband Technical Assistance Marketplace, we and the team of senior industry consultants we assembled help communities solve specific local broadband problems: attracting infrastructure investment, finding more affordable rates, improving adoption, creating community technology hubs, training for technical jobs and expanding telehealth.

kinds of help, from mapping to digital skills: 8kinds of help, from mapping to digital skills

CurrentJuly 2023 to June 2026

NC Rural Center

NC Rural Center Broadband Collaborative

With a team of consulting organizations, we support local officials in 33 rural counties in northeastern and western North Carolina as they build a locally driven process to expand service and adoption. That includes 18 of North Carolina's 33 ARC counties, among them the counties hardest hit by Hurricane Helene. The work helps communities coordinate with providers to win federal funds and gives them the data to write digital opportunity plans suited to local priorities.

rural counties: 33rural counties
Appalachian counties: 18Appalachian counties

Research2023 onward

NC Rural Center and Borderplex Connect

Housing, business and enterprise units from the FCC Fabric

Working under a Tier 4 research license to the FCC's Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric, GIS specialist Julia Byers counted served, underserved and unserved housing units, business units and enterprise units, figures that neither the public Broadband Data Collection nor the non-public Fabric exposes. She produced the analysis for North Carolina in partnership with the NC Rural Center, and for Texas and New Mexico in partnership with the nonprofit Borderplex Connect.

states: NC, TX and NM: 3states: NC, TX and NM
unit types: housing, business, enterprise: 3unit types: housing, business, enterprise

AppalachiaFounding engagement

Appalachian Regional Commission

ARC Broadband Primer and Toolkit

Commissioned by the ARC after our team left state government, this project mapped FCC Form 477 broadband availability across the thirteen-state Appalachian region. Broadband Catalysts was formed to deliver it, and BroadbandAnalyzer®, the predecessor to Marco Map, was built to handle the mapping and analysis.

states mapped: 13states mapped

FederalMulti-agency program

USDA, EPA and ARC

Cool & Connected

For the Cool & Connected program sponsored by USDA's Rural Utilities Service, EPA's Office of Sustainable Communities and the ARC, we provided technical assistance, broadband mapping and citizen surveys, and advised on public engagement and adoption strategy for 17 cities, towns and boroughs. We were then selected as a pre-approved provider for EPA broadband technical assistance.

communities: 17communities

EducationDuring the pandemic

UNC Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Oregon State

Connecting students and faculty

Three universities asked us to find the students and faculty without home broadband and determine which mobile providers could serve them with hotspots. In Maryland we also mapped K-12 students in 14 counties. The work drove major advances in the analytical engine that became Marco Map.

K-12 students mapped: 500,000+K-12 students mapped
Maryland counties: 14Maryland counties

GrantsOngoing

ISPs, counties and utilities

Winning North Carolina GREAT grants

Since Cool & Connected we have consulted for internet service providers, counties, utilities, foundations and others across the United States and Canada. In North Carolina alone, that work has produced more than $7.2 million in GREAT grant awards.

in GREAT awards: $7.2M+in GREAT awards

More highlights

The work behind the reputation.

ARC Broadband Bootcamps

Designed and delivered with the ARC for stakeholders across the region; the series was well attended.

First to map the national BDC

When the FCC released its new Broadband Data Collection in November 2022, we were among the first to process, analyze and map it nationwide, in both census block and hexagon geometry.

Federal funding, mapped

We integrated where CAF II, RDOF, ReConnect, Community Connect and Capital Projects Fund awards have already been made, so new requests avoid areas already funded.

Research on broadband's impact

Our research measured how rural broadband deployment affects entrepreneurship, job creation and GDP.

Western North Carolina after Helene

Our data and analysis are supporting recovery in flood-damaged Western North Carolina, where much of the broadband infrastructure and digital-skills capacity was badly compromised.

40 digital opportunity initiatives

We have helped develop, implement and evaluate 40 digital opportunity initiatives across the US.

Our story

From a state office to a national platform.

2001
Deborah Watts joins North Carolina's state broadband authority as Sr. Director of Research and Development.
2010
Brian Rathbone joins the e-NC Authority as Technical Assistance Director for 31 western NC counties, then works statewide at NC Broadband.
2015
Brian Rathbone, Deborah Watts and Jane Smith Patterson found Broadband Catalysts, spun off from the state broadband office, to deliver the ARC Broadband Primer and Toolkit.
Pandemic
Connectivity mapping for three universities and 500,000+ Maryland K-12 students.
2022
Among the first to map the FCC's new national Broadband Data Collection.
2023
NC Rural Center Broadband Collaborative begins, covering 33 rural counties. Julia Byers joins and becomes our lead GIS specialist, going on to build unit-level Fabric analyses for North Carolina, Texas and New Mexico.
2024
Rural LISC Broadband Planning Help Hub begins. Jeff Sural, former director of the NC Broadband Infrastructure Office, joins the team.
Today
Marco Map carries every FCC broadband location across eight data releases, powering every engagement.

Your community could be our next story.

Tell us what you are trying to decide, fund or build. We will tell you what the data says, what it will take, and what you will get.

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