MCNC’s North Carolina Rural Broadband Initiative project proposes to extend the benefits of its $28.2M BTOP Round One award to deploy infrastructure in eastern and western North Carolina by constructing over 1,300 more miles of fiber infrastructure to community colleges, libraries, schools, health and public safety facilities, and other community anchor institutions in 69 of the most economically disadvantaged rural counties primarily along the northern and southern borders of North Carolina. The project proposes to build out a 100 Gbps middle-mile network with a 3 Mbps wireless component to support eLearning and advanced statewide research initiatives, improvements in public health and electronic medical records, and improved network connectivity for existing network infrastructure, as well as access to high-speed educational networks.