The Lake County New Chronicle posted an update on the Northeast Service Cooperative’s plan to bring fiber that would pass through St. Louis, Lake, Cook, Koochiching, Carlton, Pine, Itasca and Aitkin counties.
NSC received $43.5 million in ARRA broadband funding to expand broadband in 8 counties and more than 221 key sites, with the potential to stimulate public-private partnerships long-term across the region. They are currently in the engineering phase. As the Chronicle reports…
Representatives of the Northeast Service Cooperative told local officials on Thursday that the group is in the engineering phase of the project to bring broadband to agencies such as medical facilities, counties and schools throughout Northeastern Minnesota.
They also report that they anticipate getting started with building about a year from now. They plan is to build the network for those key sites but then to open the infrastructure up to other providers to service residents and local businesses.
[...] could be shared. I don’t know that all providers are interested in the open access model, but some are. I know that both the State Report and National Broadband Plan encourage public-private [...]
By: Sibley County broadband for farms: fair or foul? « Blandin on Broadband on November 18, 2010
at 9:29 pm