Thanks to Becky LaPlant for sending me a heads up from the local Timberjay newspaper on the Range’s FiberNet project.
I’ve blogged about FiberNet before, it’s the group of nearly a dozen communities in NE Minnesota that are working together to build a fiber network.
Well apparently the planning is going well. Last summer their cost estimates were $49 million to set up the network – the latest estimate is $22 million. Not bad! The timing is good because the planning committee needs to go to the communities to ask them to start to contribute financially to the project. Up until now the funding has come from the IRR and Blandin Foundation.
FiberNet plans to talk to the communities in February and is hoping to get $100,000 to keep the project on track.
I nearly forgot my favorite part of the story. Winona-based Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC) is going to build the network. They were going to operate it too – but they decided that it would be better for homegrown NE Minnesota resources to operate the network. I love that! It keeps the ownership and immediate economic incentives very local. (Reminded me of Geoff Daily’s recent article on building fiber infrastructure to kick start the economy. His point being that rather than build roads as a New Deal WPA program – why not think 21st century and build fiber.)
This is a very interesting development and I think that the local control and operations is very exciting. I want to congratulate Hiawatha Broadband for thinking outside the box.
My question about this project is about how costs were cut in half from the original estimate. Is the network smaller? Are they planning to make use of other fiber assets? Business feasibility studies are made up of lots of assumptions that can only be verified later. Project cost is a very critical assumption and that big of a change must impact other assumptions as well.
Thanks.
Pingback: US is falling behind « Blandin on Broadband
Pingback: Obama’s Looking for a CTO « Blandin on Broadband