This morning I attended a Dakota County Commission meeting where they discussed progress of their fiber project and approved $1.2 million for 500,000 feet of fiber cabling, conduit and duct. I share it for a few reasons:
- To share Dakota County’s good news
- To offer Dakota County up as an example to other communities about how to plan and present to policymakers
- To give folks an idea of what $1 million buys in the world of fiber – especially in light of legislators severely reducing the budget for the Minnesota Broadband Fund.
Here’s the PPT:
The video:
Blandin on Broadband 
I hope that the Commissioners realize that $1.2M was only for the materials. I suspect that the installation of this project will cost significantly more than that. One million dollars doesn’t really buy much in the world of fiber especially when the cost of installation is figured into the equation. A million dollars will typically only get about 20-40 miles of buried fiber in a suburban installation. Cable installation is expensive!
They did. The IT folks from Dakota were very specific and I think they do a good job keeping the Commissioners informed.
Video of the meeting has now been posted: http://dakota.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?clip_id=472&view_id=2
And yes, 1.2 million was not even all inclusive for our 2015 materials costs, we still have more investing to do this year. Thankfully, not all the fiber installation is considered suburban, some of it will be rural.
And thank you for the post and the comments.
Dan,
Thanks a million for the answer and the video. You guys do good work.
Ann