The Broadband Task Force met today. Their stated goal is to focus on education in the first few months of the year. Today they heard from folks at the Mayo on rural health research and from a Task Force member Ini Augustine who does digital equity work in Hennepin County through Technologist Computers. They also got an update from the Office of Broadband Development.
Meeting Agenda Continue reading
TV News Check reports…
Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC) announced Tuesday it is expanding its multi-gig Flight Fiber internet service, offering symmetrical speeds of up to 5 Gig to residential and business customers across Southeast Minnesota.
The expansion makes HBC the only provider in the region capable of delivering such speeds, according to the company. The 2026 deployments are currently bringing multi-gig fiber to several communities, including Winona, Red Wing, Lake City, Farmington, Hastings and Empire.
The service, branded as Flight Fiber, provides symmetrical 2 Gig and 5 Gig options. The company said the increased capacity is designed to handle high-demand activities such as 4K streaming, online gaming, and large file transfers across multiple devices simultaneously.
The Office of Broadband Development will give a presentation this afternoon to MN Senate Committee…
Wednesday, February 18th, 2026 03:00 PM
Committee on Agriculture, Veterans, Broadband, and Rural Development
Chair: Sen. Aric Putnam
Location: 1150 Minnesota Senate Bldg.***Revision 4: Agenda change***
*Agenda items may be added or removed.
To submit documents or request testimony, email the Committee Administrator (nick.roth@mnsenate.gov) by 3:00 PM, Tuesday 2/17.
Late submissions may not be posted in advance of the hearing or included in prepared materials for committee members.
TESTIMONY: Include the bill number, your name, title and/or organization and whether your testimony will be in support or opposition.
Agenda
Minnesota Department of Agriculture – Agency Overview
Office of Broadband Development – Update on State Programs and BEAD
The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society reports on the results of NTIA’s first of two listening sessions on the “Use of BEAD Funds Saved Through the Trump Administration’s Benefit of the Bargain Reforms.” (The second sessions happens tomorrow, Feb 18.)…
As mandated by Congress in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, states and territories may use BEAD funds to make subgrants to:
- Deploy broadband networks to unserved and underserved areas,
- Connect community anchor institutions,
- Conduct data collection, broadband mapping, and planning;
- Install internet and Wi-Fi infrastructure or provide reduced-cost broadband within multifamily residential buildings; and
- Increase broadband adoption, including programs to provide affordable internet-capable devices.
In addition, Congress authorized Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Arielle Roth to determine additional uses of these funds to facilitate BEAD’s goals. NTIA’s listening sessions are meant to inform Roth’s determination on additional uses.
Attendees talked about other uses for funds, including the following topics:
An opportunity from Project Nandi in the Twin Cities…
Neighbors Connect for Family and Individuals
This program distributes free laptops, and helps families and individuals get digital access. The orientation session will go over day to day digital skills like:
· Understand how to power on computer
· Connect to internet
· Open browser
· Check email
· Join and access Google Meet
During the training we will go over how to access the Northstar digital literacy program. This will allow participants to further their digital knowledge. Once the participant completes their training they will be given a no-cost laptop.
Buoyed by nearly $8 million in largely state-driven investment, Waseca County has made dramatic strides over the last couple of Lino offer congratulations for the achievement award and the progress the county has made in expanding access to high speed broadband.
They report on the Waseca’s ranking in the country broadband profiles…
According to the nonprofit Blandin Foundation, Waseca County had been stuck for several years in the “red” category, ranking in the bottom tier of Minnesota counties with only about three-quarters of county residents having access to broadband
Thanks to several recently approved multi-million dollar projects, the share of Waseca County residents with access to high speed broadband meeting the state’s 2026 goals has increased to around 84%, pushing it from the “red” tier into yellow.
Back in 2024, local service provider Bevcomm received close to $6 million in grant funding to build nearly 200 miles of mainline broadband which now provides internet service for hundreds of families in the lightly populated southwest portion of the county, centered around Waldorf.
Thanks to that major investment, almost every home and business in southwest Waseca County now has access to high speed broadband. Future projects will instead focus on the northern portion of the county around Waseca and Janesville, and east of Highway 13.
And offer a recommendation to get even closer to goal…
However, to close the deal on the “last mile” broadband projects which tend to be particularly expensive, Kraus is asking county residents for their help, specifically those rural residents who continue to be unserved or underserved by current infrastructure.
Under the Minnesota Broadband Line Extension Program, Waseca County residents or business owners who have no internet or broadband less than the 25 mbs downloads/3 mbs uploads can apply for up to $25,000 to get a line extension to their home or business.
Unfortunately this is at the same time at the MN Broadband Task Force meeting but it looks interesting…
Digital Equity Ecosystems:
How Community Coalitions Reduce Inequality and Strengthen Democracya talk with Colin Rhinesmith, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Join us on February 18, 2026, from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET for a stimulating talk!
Use the link here to register for the Zoom webinar: https://tinyurl.com/47ukftct
From the Office of Broadband Development…
Agenda: Broadband Task Force, February Meeting
Date: 2/18/2026
- Meeting ID and Pass Code: 226 514 117 478 07 and mi9iF756
- Dial in by phone: +1 651-395-7448,,802366705# Phone conference ID: 802 366 705#
- Join on a video conferencing device: mn@m.webex.com Video ID: 114 382 750 2
Meeting Agenda
10:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.
Welcome from Teddy Bekele, Chair, Minnesota Governor’s Task Force on Broadband and approval of minutes from January Task Force meeting.
10:15 a.m. – 10:55 a.m.
Rural Health Research: Understanding Digital Access to Improve Community Health with Tabetha Brockman, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Program Manager, Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCaTS) Rural Health Research Core and Ilaya Rome Hopkins, Community Engagement Coordinator, MCCCC & CCaTS Rural Health Research Core.
10:55 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
Office of Broadband Development (OBD) overview and updates from Bree Maki (Executive Director, OBD).
11:15 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Open the floor to other business, no meeting in March, and meeting wrap-up.
The Willmar City Council will meet Tuesday, Feb. 17, and will conduct four public hearings.
The first two public hearings are related to the issuance of tax abatement bonds for Connect Willmar, the city’s initiative to construct a city-wide, city-owned broadband network on which multiple internet service providers can lease bandwidth to provide internet services to Willmar residents. …
The meeting takes place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the boardroom at the Kandiyohi County Health and Human Services Building, 2200 23rd St. N.E. in Willmar. The council is meeting Tuesday due to the Presidents Day holiday on Monday.
The full agenda and accompanying packet of meeting materials can be viewed on the city’s website at willmarmn.gov on the mayor and council page under agendas, minutes, and videos for 2026 meetings.
An upcoming session from University of Illinois Extension…
Watt’s Up with Data Centers? Part 3: Community Strategies for Responding to Data Center Development
Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 12:00 noon CT
Has your community been approached by a data center? This webinar in the Resilient Communities series will equip communities with practical strategies to navigate data center proposals, understand their environmental impacts, and know what questions to ask from the start. Participants will learn from a local community’s Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) to see how CBAs can align projects with community goals. We’ll finish with a look forward on how state policy can support responsible data center development, including greater transparency on power needs and water use and support for carbon-free electricity.
Speakers
James Gignac is Midwest Policy Director for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Prior to joining UCS, Mr. Gignac served as environmental and energy counsel and as assistant attorney general to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, where he worked on a variety of regulatory, legislative, and litigation matters involving clean energy, climate change, and environmental protection. Before his time in state government, Mr. Gignac was Midwest director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, and also represented private sector clients in environmental matters with the law firm Mayer Brown LLP.
Lucy Contreras is the Illinois State Program Director for GreenLatinos and leads the Environmental Justice Caucus of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, where she is helping advance legislation to regulate data centers in Illinois. In these roles, she works closely with frontline communities to build understanding around environmental issues and to ensure community priorities are centered and reflected in policy solutions.
Moises Moreno is the Organizing Director with Alliance of Southeast (ASE) and co-staffs the South Works CBA and Policy campaign. Moises has been with ASE for over a year and brings over 20 years of community-organizing experience and policy advocacy in Chicago. He currently lives on the Southeast side as a Hyde Park resident.
This session will include a 15-minute Q&A segment, giving you an opportunity to ask questions about these topics. Please note that this Resilient Communities program will be offered in the Zoom Webinar format, instead of the Zoom Meeting format.
Part of the Local Government Education programming series, Resilient Communities webinars are a result of University of Illinois Extension and Prairie Rivers Network‘s collaboration to build capacity for technical assistance and education aimed to help communities navigate energy- and environment-related funding opportunities, provide guidance on community inclusion, and lead community-specific strategic planning. This outreach should help communities secure and manage resources to address legacy pollution, invest in clean energy technologies, and more. For more information, contact: Linda Derhak, National Resources Energy and Environment, Illinois Extension, at lderhak2@illinois.edu.
State Representative Paul Anderson (R-Starbuck) has announced his intent to seek re-election to the Minnesota House of Representatives. The region he serves, District 12A, includes Stevens, Swift and Big Stone counties, most of Pope County and a dozen townships in Stearns County.
During his time at the Capitol, Anderson has served on committees that deal with agriculture, natural resources and the environment, education, veterans affairs, government operations, housing and taxes. He currently serves as co-chair of the Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee. …
Anderson has been involved in a wide variety of specific issues for constituents with regards to veterans, broadband accessibility, elder care, mental health, education, taxes, drainage and water quality.
Gov. Tim Walz has authorized $1.2 million in state emergency disaster assistance to address a cybersecurity incident that disrupted digital services in St. Paul for several weeks this summer. While most public-facing, Internet-based services were back online within a month, some behind-the-scenes work to shift, recreate or safeguard digital services remains ongoing.
Details on the event…
On July 29, a cyber attack forced the city of St. Paul to shutter most Internet-based services, from public computer terminals at libraries to bill payment services and phone communications. In response, Walz issued an executive order activating cyber-security specialists from the Minnesota National Guard, and the FBI and private consultants quickly became involved.
With a demanded ransom unpaid, cyber-attackers eventually released data from personal files held by St. Paul Parks and Recreation workers onto the Internet, but the files did not involve information from core systems like payroll or licensing, according to the mayor’s office at the time.
A tally of actual costs related to the cyber attack was not immediately available on Wednesday evening, but the 2026 city budget includes more than $1 million in added cybersecurity funding to restore systems and further safeguard digital services.
Consolidated Telephone Company (CTC) expanded its broadband fiber optic network to approximately 400 unserved or underserved locations in Clinton Township and adjacent areas, including homes, businesses and farms.
All locations have a minimum service offering available of 250 megabits per second download and upload, with services of 10 gigabits per second download and upload available. Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation (IRRR) supported the project with a $1,150,000 Broadband Infrastructure grant to CTC. The total project investment was $5,400,000.
Joe Buttweiler is CTC’s chief strategy officer. He explained that access to broadband is as imperative today as electricity was 75 years ago. A reliable fiber optic network is the backbone necessary to provide rural residents, small businesses, teleworkers and farmers with access to the benefits of unlimited bandwidth, cost efficiency and reliability.
Prior to this project, many residents in the Clinton Township area did not have access to quality or affordable internet service for everyday needs.
The project also received a $2,624,187 Border to-Border Broadband Development Grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development and a $400,000 grant from St. Louis County.
Bluepeak has announced a $35 million investment to expand and upgrade its fiber-optic broadband network in southwest Minnesota.
The project will overbuild the company’s existing infrastructure with Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) technology, providing internet speeds of up to 5 gigabits per second for residential customers and up to 10 gigabits per second for businesses. The expansion is intended to improve reliability and increase network capacity across the region.
Bluepeak has also expanded backbone capacity, upgraded key network components and strengthened overall infrastructure across its Minnesota footprint to support growing digital demands.
The Post Bulletin posts an opinion column from Bree Maki, director of the Office of Broadband Development…
At the end of last year, the federal government approved Minnesota’s proposal to expand broadband access to Minnesotans who need it most.
Under the plan, my state agency, the Department of Employment and Economic Development, will deploy Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) federal funding to connect 75,000 homes and businesses to high-speed internet and build the infrastructure we need to ensure consistent and cost-effective broadband for Minnesota.
She offers a positive perspective…
The good news is, our BEAD plan will help more Minnesotans access this fundamental resource; in fact, it may impact every Minnesota location that federal officials deemed eligible for BEAD funding. To see if your location is included in the BEAD-eligible locations or if they are funded with state programs, go to our interactive map to learn more .
This is a huge accomplishment. And it happened only because of the close partnership between DEED’s Office of Broadband Development and Minnesota’s private sector internet service providers. Throughout it all, we focused on our shared goal of serving as many people as we possibly could.
And a plan…
So, what happens next? With federal approval in hand, we now aim to award grants to our ISP partners to begin broadband infrastructure construction later this year. Minnesotans in eligible locations can expect faster broadband to be available as soon as late 2026.
But this isn’t DEED’s only broadband program. Long before BEAD, Minnesota has been a leader because we understood and prioritized broadband access. Since 2022, our flagship Border to Border Program has funded 189 large-scale broadband expansion projects, connecting an estimated 122,000 locations to faster internet. Late in 2025, we made our fourth round of awards from the Line Extension program, which connects Minnesotans who have no or slow broadband directly to service providers in their area.