I got some bad news from Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) today about Iron Range FiberNet. Last week the Hibbing city council voted unanimously not to put $15,000 toward the continued financial feasibility of the Iron Range FiberNet project. Hibbing is kind of the big fish in the project of 11 communities that had been involved in building a community wide network. Each community has been asked to pony up $15,000 to stay involved in the project.

So far Mountain Iron and Two Harbors have also opted out of the project. Ely and Babbitt are definitely in and more meetings in more communities will tell us how the project will shake out.

The project seemed as if it were full steam ahead last summer. Then the estimated costs actually went down considerably over the winter. It seemed like a done deal. Then about Christmastime one of the project leaders retired from the project but able folks seem to pick it up. So things were still looking up. It’s disappointing to see the project start to unravel.