When the Infrastructure Breaks, So Do Communities. That’s Why We Show Up.

It’s one thing to fix fiber. It’s another to show up for a community that’s just lived through crisis. Imagine losing your home, your internet, your connection to everything—and still needing to get back to work and help others recover.

That’s what Tracy and the team at MCNC did after Hurricane Helene ripped through North Carolina. They manage over 4,500 miles of fiber connecting schools, hospitals, and government institutions. When the storm hit, entire segments of that infrastructure were destroyed—washed off mountains, torn out of roads, both aerial and underground gone.

But instead of waiting for someone else to step in, they rebuilt. Not just for themselves, but for the regional providers and partners that rely on them. They shared resources, deployed teams, and supported the people around them. Because for MCNC, and for all of us in this space, connectivity is about more than uptime. It’s about showing up.

Connectivity matters when people can depend on it. That takes resilience. It takes planning. And most of all, it takes people who care.

Middle Mile Without the Wait

MCNC didn’t wait for the BEAD money to start building. When NTIA announced Middle Mile funding, they secured $11 million and matched it with $9 million of their own. That 200-mile expansion wasn’t just a line on a map. It was a commitment to giving local providers something real to build on.

They built an open network. It’s up and running now. Last-mile providers can lease fiber today, and many already are. That’s what leadership looks like: building for others, not just for yourself.

If Patients Can’t Connect, Providers Can’t Help

MCNC supports North Carolina’s entire telehealth backbone. During COVID, that meant doctors could still reach patients when hospitals were overwhelmed. But there’s a gap that’s easy to miss: when the patient doesn’t have access at home, even the best-connected provider is stuck.

You can’t deliver modern healthcare without end-to-end access. The same goes for education. It’s not enough for a school building to be online. If students can’t connect from home, they’re already behind.

Unprotected Networks Aren’t Progress

Connectivity without security is an open door to disaster. We’ve seen hospitals shut down. Education platforms hit with ransomware. And high-value targets like PowerSchool fall to cyberattacks.

That’s why MCNC layers cybersecurity on top of everything they offer. Not as an upsell. As a necessity. Schools, hospitals, and local governments are vulnerable by nature. Protection has to be built in from day one.

AI, Quantum, and the Return to Roots

MCNC started out as a supercomputing center. Today, they’re circling back—with purpose.

They’re launching AI pilots, offering GPU-as-a-service to researchers across top universities. They’re scoping out quantum testbeds in partnership with institutions like Duke and NC State. This isn’t buzzword chasing. It’s a real investment in building infrastructure that supports the future of research, security, and technology.

But what makes it matter is how they approach it—with community impact at the center.

The Rural Waitlist is Too Long

If you’ve spent any time in support, you already know. The divide isn’t just digital. It’s emotional. Rural communities don’t just lack access. They’ve been told to wait. They’ve watched opportunities pass them by. And when the funding stalls, so does their future.

Tracy said it best. These towns lose their young people. They lose their industries. And sometimes they never recover. We’ve seen it with mining towns. We’ve seen it with furniture manufacturing hubs. Now we’re watching it happen with broadband.

We can’t keep pretending this is just a tech challenge. It’s a community challenge. And it deserves better answers.

AI Doesn’t Replace Judgment. It Amplifies It

I’ll be honest. I’ve become a convert on AI. Not because it’s magic, but because it’s useful.

Take hundreds of support calls, run them through AI models, and you’ll find trends like sentiment, intent, or training gaps that you’d never catch by listening to five random recordings.

That said, don’t let it replace your brain. If an AI flags a node for future saturation, validate it. If it shows you something unexpected, dig in.

You don’t blindly follow AI outputs. But you shouldn’t ignore them either. If you are, what was the point of collecting the data in the first place?

Time to Stop Holding Our Breath

Broadband isn’t just fiber. It’s job applications. It’s homework. It’s seeing your grandkids on Zoom. It’s the thread that ties a community to its future.

If BEAD comes through, great. But we can’t keep waiting on one solution. We need more action, more coordination, and more examples like MCNC.

Don’t wait for permission to do the right thing.

Because when the infrastructure fails, the work isn’t just about repair. It’s about reminding people they haven’t been forgotten.

Listen to the Full Episode

Catch my full conversation with Tracy from MCNC on the Bandwidth podcast. Available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and the Bandwidth YouTube Channel.