Speeding up.

• Position: WESTERN REGION - Yancey County's infrastructure

The tiny town of Burnsville and surrounding Yancey County are home to an unlikely distinction: the fastest countywide Internet speed in North Carolina. That means even the most mountainous reaches get the kind of service that customers have in the state's urban centers. It's the result of a five-year project that started during the heart of the recession. Newly elected county officials in 2008 placed broadband on their priority list, and the issue happened to coincide with available federal stimulus money. Big telecommunication companies balked at partnering with the county, but homegrown Country Cablevision decided to take on the project. In all, expanding infrastructure cost $25.2 million --about $18.6 million from stimulus funds and $6.6 million from a U.S. Department of Agriculture loan. So far, about 2,000 homes and businesses are wired to the fiber system out of about 24,000 that have access to it, including parts of neighboring Mitchell County, says Dean Russell, project manager for Country Cablevision. Customers have trickled in as they cancel contracts with providers such as Dish, Frontier Wireless or AT&T. Yancey County has about 17,600 residents, according to census estimates. While pricing for speeds of 25,50 and 100 megabits per second are roughly comparable to other providers, its gigabit service costs about $500 per month. AT&T charges $70 per month for gigabit service in its North...