North Carolina proxies from Charlotte through the Triangle

Three metros, three economies

North Carolina is carried by three metros close enough together to function as one extended urban corridor, different enough to warrant per-DMA targeting. Charlotte (DMA #21) is a Bank of America and Wells Fargo finance town with a significant fintech testing presence. Raleigh–Durham (#22) is the Research Triangle Park — pharma, IBM, the big three NC universities, and a concentrated R&D economy. Greensboro– High Point–Winston-Salem (#46) is the Piedmont Triad — furniture, logistics, and insurance.

Carrier footprint

Spectrum (AS20115) is the dominant residential ISP across all three metros — legacy Time Warner Cable for the Triad, legacy Charter for Charlotte. AT&T Internet runs fiber in the Charlotte uptown core and in the RTP's densest office corridors. On mobile, Verizon is slightly dominant in the RTP, AT&T is the Charlotte default, and T-Mobile is closing the gap fast in all three markets — standalone 5G reached Charlotte and Raleigh in 2024.

What NC work looks like

Banking and fintech QA. Charlotte's banking-sector digital teams test their own retail-banking flows against Charlotte-IP traffic first. Residential Spectrum Charlotte exits surface the correct creative variant, location-based alerts, and branch-locator responses.

RTP / pharma creative. Raleigh-Durham-IP captures against pharma brand sites show the correct RTP creative, including recruiting content for the RTP pharma employer cluster.

Insurance and consumer lending. Greensboro / Piedmont rotations surface insurance quote flows sensitive to NC ZIP-level pricing and underlying underwriter geography. Useful for comparison.

SNKRS and retail. The Charlotte sneaker scene is active and a Charlotte residential exit is well-behaved on Shopify Plus retail. Pool concurrency in Charlotte is the highest of the three metros.

Pool and pricing

Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro each carry separate pool allocations on Proxaro — priority is Charlotte > Raleigh > Greensboro by default. Coast covers the state; Carrier opens ASN pinning. City depth: Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro. Neighbors: Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia.