Monday night Senator Kiffmeyer hosted an information session on broadband in Big Lake, Minnesota. It included a panel of experts to help detail the issues, options and hopes to the community at large. The meeting was well attended – in part I’m sure sue to Sherband, a community effort to raise awareness of broadband. I’m sure they helped to spread the word but also they have been building a buzz for the topic for several months.

Folks are frustrated because – as the community maps indicate, Big Lake is a dead or slow zone – a black hole someone noted, in a region that seems to have better broadband in nearly every direction. They were frustrated with Windstream, the provider that covers most of the area and chose not to attend the session. Frontier, Charter and Palmer Wireless were there – all seemingly interested in developing partnerships to bring better broadband to the community.

The meeting included stories of people having trouble due to lack of adequate broadband, successful broadband adoption and research projects especially supported by the Blandin Foundation and a discussion of the business case for serving an area like Big Lake from the business, municipal and cooperative perspective. The big question remained – how do we get providers to come to our area? Several suggestions were made – first get involved with Sherband, second start created the business case for prospective providers and talk with your money by trying to support the providers who are interested in expanding coverage to the area.

Welcome from Mayor Danielowski

Here are more notes and videos…

Lucero (Wright Co) –

Representative Zerwas

The goal of the meeting is to get information. We invited Windstream to be here but they never got back to us.

Danna Mackenzie– Office of Broadband Development

We recognize the importance of broadband.

We have state goals for broadband access 10 Mbps down and 5 Mbps. We measure progress toward that goal. We look at what’s happening in other states. We also track federal programs and policies to help Minnesota better apply for federal funding. We track progress of our providers. We have innovative work happening in Minnesota’s rural areas. We help support anchor institutions’ access to broadband. We are focusing on E-Rate as an option for deploying broadband in unserved areas.

There are two maps – it looks like we may be looking at older maps that tracked 10/6 speeds. We now measure at 10/5 so there may be some discrepancies. The maps are the best case information – but they are not perfect.

We have a grant process. In 2014 we got $20 Million; this year we got $10+ Million. The deadline for those funds was September 15. We expect that those awards will be made mid-November.

George Wallin – IT career, teacher and representing Sherband.

There isn’t a government solution. I need broadband. Windstream does not meet my needs. We all need better broadband. We need provider(s) that will maintain equipment and connectivity to meet our needs. WE need to incent competition into the area.

Bill Coleman – Broadband Consultant (to Blandin among others)

Wrote a community guide to telecommunications in 1997. Been working with Sherband through the BBC initiative. Blandin has funded specific projects and is supporting the effort to raise awareness of broadband. The team here is doing a good job. I used to have to talk to communities into broadband – but now people want it – by name. Broadband is a competitive industry – as opposed to telephone, which is highly regulated. Competition works in places like Minneapolis – but it’s not working in places with lower population density. The investment is very difficult to recoup ROI in timely period. Governments have longer expectations for ROI. In economic development we try to match rate of investment with expected life of asset.

The speeds goals are not keeping up with national standards. People are now talking about Gig access. Gig (maybe 100 Mbps) is necessary to attract technologists. You never want the bandwidth to be a constraint to economic development.

The community will set the standard for what’s good enough. It should not be set by a company/provider that may or may not be in the community and may or may not be invested in community growth and success.

Brian Kamman – IT Director for Sherburne County

Kirk Lehman from Frontier Communications

Laura Cabes with Charter

Senator Dave Brown

It’s appropriate for government to pay for infrastructure needs.

Rep Sondra Erickson

WE need competition. There are areas that need to get service.

How can people get involved with Sherband?

Dan Weber –

We meet every six weeks. Our goal is to raise awareness. We had a success with palmer Wireless seeking funding to provide better service. We plan to go to city councils in the area to spread the word.

Albert Kangas – Palmer Wireless

We started with fixed wireless – but have branched out. We worked with Becker on how to serve the industrial park – on the other wide of the tracks. We received funding to reach them with fiber. We hope to turn on customers next week!

Questions

Why are there only two colors on the map?

Because it shows served versus unserved.

What’s the obstacle for competition? What encourages a provider to come into an area?

Competition makes a tougher business case for providers. We need to show a profit? We need ROI. With community network investigation no one wins when people don’t come to the table.

It’s federal funds, its local funds, it business investment.