Cherokee Cablevision GREAT Grant in Swain County
Project Overview: Cherokee Cablevision GREAT Grant in Swain County
Cherokee Cablevision (CCV) won the 2nd GREAT Grant Award in July of 2023 to serve 548 unserved and underserved locations in Swain County. All new locations will be served by Fiber-To-The-Home GPON, with a maximum bandwidth of 1000 Mbps downstream by 1000 Mbps upstream. The map indicates the original grant application areas. CCV is structured this project into Phases and included into another tribal fiber deployment. The CCV project covers these 3 areas: 1) Big Cove, Yellowhilll, and Cherokee, 2) Wolftown, Paintown Big Y, and 4) 3200 Acre tract, Whittier, Qualla.
What does GREAT stand for? The Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) Program funds the terrestrial deployment of broadband within unserved areas of economically distressed counties.
Project Stats
- Grant Awarded: $1,681,930.95
- Award Date: July 2023
- CCV Match: $296,811.34
- Swain Co. Match: $5,000
- Locations: 548
- Comprised of: Households & Businesses
- Contract Signed: January 2024
- Original Schedule: Ends October 2025
- Extension Requested till October 2026
Project Updates
Date: August 27 2025
Title: General Update on Cherokee Cablevision (CVV) 2025 Project activities
Overview: The CCV GREAT grant project is continuing with work started in two of the four phase locations. CCV will ask for an extension to Oct 2026 to complete their deployment, instead of the original October 2025.
- Phase 1 Big Cove/Yellow Hill – 105 locations ready
- Phase 2 Wolftown/Painttown/Big Y (Jackson County)
- Phase 3 Birdtown 117 locations. Pole attachment applications done. Begin construction Fall 2025
- Phase 4 Whittier/3200 Acres – 326 locations, planned for early 2026 deployment. Fiber is already in place.
Date: January 24, 2025
Title: Project Update from CCV COO Shannon Powell
Here is how this project is structured and how we are tracking it. In an effort to be more efficient and get the best use of grant funding, we have been able to incorporate this grant build into our existing fiber build project that the EBCI has undertaken. The grant consisted of 548 eligible addresses. We have incorporated these addresses into Phases 1, 3 & 4 of the existing build as follows:
- Phase 1-105 addresses
- Phase 3-117 addresses
- Phase 4-326 addresses
We are currently working in Phases 1 & 2. Phase 3 is currently expected to begin construction mid-year of this year while Phase 4 is expected to begin late 2025 to early 2026. Both phases are currently expected to complete by end of year 2026.
Phase 1 construction is nearly complete as far as the main network is concerned. Home drops and connections to the main network are mainly what is lacking. We currently have 88 addresses out of 105 ready for service in this phase. Engineering is complete in the remaining phases including 3 & 4. Pole attachment applications in these phases are currently underway.
Date: Dec 31, 2024
Title: Cherokee Cablevision Progress Report Form
Overview: The design and engineering work for their GREAT grant project is 100% complete.