Last fall, Carver County got the good news on their ARRA application – they received almost $6 million to build a fiber optic ring. According to their web site…

The fiber ring will be nearly 89 miles long, run directly through all 11 cities in the county, and have an additional 32 miles of lateral connections connecting over 80 public partners. These partners represent city, county and township governments, fire departments, schools, public safety towers and law enforcement agencies as well as a regional healthcare center.

The ring is an open network, which will enable private service providers to offer broadband services on this network to homes and businesses.

The project seems to be rolling along. Last week, they issued a request for bid for the construction portion of the project. For folks who might be interested they are offering a few training/demonstration events in the next few weeks that will help. The bids are due April 5, 2011.

The Carver County Fiber web site is a wealth of information! There was one paragraph that caught my eye…

Carver County currently spends about $290,000 a year to lease T1 copper lines and will result in a 5 year payback relative to the $1.5 million in county match funds. Once the ring is complete, Carver County will realize a reduction in annual expenses and contain future costs.

Last week at the TISP meeting we heard from three counties who are working on countywide broadband. Hard numbers, like the cost of T1 lines, help me put in perspective the definition of profitable. Sometime it’s not how much you make, it’s how much you save!