Doug Dawson on reasons to support Public WiFi

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Doug Dawson reports on the POTS and PANS blog…

One of the most interesting positive things that came out of the COVID pandemic was that communities and organizations across the country deployed public WiFi hotspots. This was done at the time to support students and workers who were expected to find a way to work remotely. And this worked well in a lot of places, and I’ve talked to communities who said the public flocked to the free WiFi during the pandemic.

There was another benefit of the free hot spots – they created places where people who couldn’t afford broadband suddenly had a place to access the Internet. This number of people varies by community, but the nationwide numbers suggest that around 14% of homes don’t have a home broadband solution, and as many as 80% of those folks say they would buy a home broadband solution if they could afford it.

As I wrote about in a recent blog, the number of homes without broadband is unfortunately growing due to affordability issues related to the other increasing costs of daily life like rent, food, health care, and transportation. An increasing number of homes are finding it harder to maintain their broadband connection. Several ISPs have told me about a growing number of broadband customers that regularly disconnect and then reconnect broadband during the year depending on their ability to pay the bill.

The post goes on to talk about aspects of providing public WiFi to the community.

Federal appeals back fiber provider in railroad dispute

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Broadband Breakfast reports…

A federal appeals court has sided with a fiber provider in a dispute over whether a railroad can control, and charge for, access beneath its tracks.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled Friday that CSX Transportation could not use its Indiana railroad easements to block Zayo Group from running fiber optic cable beneath its corridor.

Office of Broadband Development Update Aug 12 2026: BEAD, Line Extension and Digital Equity Grant

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From the Office of Broadband Development...

Broadband Matters: Office of Broadband Development Updates

  • Broadband Task Force, August meeting plans
  • Federal decisions reset Digital Equity Grant timeline
  • Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) updates
  • Line Extension Connection Program, registration open for residents and businesses

OBD Executive Director Bree Maki had the opportunity to present at Mountain Connect on Minnesota’s approaches and best practices for BEAD.

Broadband Task Force, August meeting plans

The Broadband Task Force will meet tomorrow, Thursday August 13 at 10 a.m. CT. This meeting will be held virtually and is open to anyone from the public to attend. The Teams link to join the meeting is included on the meeting agenda which has been posted along with other information on past meetings on the Broadband Task Force webpage.

Federal decisions reset Digital Equity Grant timeline

Two recent federal court rulings have reshaped national Digital Equity Act (DEA) programs and clarified what is, and is not, changing for Minnesota.

In NDIA v. Trump, the court ruled that the administration lacked authority to terminate the DEA Competitive Grant Program, requiring National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to reinstate it without race‑based criteria. A DOJ/Commerce memo confirms a new Competitive Grant NOFO is expected in December 2026. This ruling affects only the national Competitive Grant Program administered by NTIA. More information on the ruling is available from the Benton Institute.

In State of New Jersey et al. v. OMB, where Minnesota is an active plaintiff, the court found that federal agencies cannot terminate awarded grants based on newly announced priorities, strengthening protections for state‑administered programs. Counts II and III remain pending.

Importantly, there is no new information regarding Minnesota’s State Digital Equity Capacity Grants, and there has been no reinstatement of that program. We continue monitoring federal developments and will adjust if future changes occur. Updates will be relayed through this newsletter and on the OBD Digital Opportunity webpage.

Please feel free to reach out to our office with questions at DEED.broadband@state.mn.us or by phone at 651-259-7610.

Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) updates

OBD is continuing to work through required project scope changes and preparing contracts for execution. These scope changes often include removing locations newly identified as already served or re‑awarding locations when providers decline an award. Updated information and resources can be found on the OBD BEAD webpage. Additionally:

Because the NTIA must approve project scope changes, the review process can take several weeks. OBD will continue coordinating closely with partners to keep projects moving and to meet the federal contracting deadline of October 8, 2026.

Providers and community members can contact OBD (DEED.broadband@state.mn.us) with questions.

Line Extension Connection Program, registration open for residents and businesses

Registration remains open for residents and businesses for future rounds of the Line Extension Connection Program.

For assistance completing the application or to request a paper form to complete, please call 651-259-7610 or email DEED.broadband@state.mn.us.

More information and registration are available on the Line Extension Connection Program webpage.

Gubernatorial candidate Amy Klobuchar talks about data centers

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KFGO reports…

Democratic nominee for Minnesota Governor Amy Klobuchar is sharing her plans if elected governor. She says Minnesota needs a government that matches the drive and ambition of it’s residents.

And specifically on data centers…

Klobuchar also commented on data centers.

“(Data centers) Cause people’s rates to go up, they have hurt the environment, and that just can’t keep happening. So my answer to this is number one, local control. Allowing the locals to make decisions, one data center isn’t the same as another one. Secondly, Minnesota did put in place a more progressive law, that is much more focused on electric rates and on the environment and things like that. The fact that some of this is in the dark from people, and they sign these non-disclosure agreements, things like that, I don’t think that should be happening.” Klobuchar said.

Event Aug 19: #Building for Digital Equity MLK “Dream” Speech Edition

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From NDIA (National Digital Inclusion Alliance) and Institute for Local Self Reliance…

On Wednesday, August 19, just eight days before the anniversary of King’s speech, the on-going webinar series returns to pose a pointed question to the digital inclusion community: what is our dream for digital equity — and what kind of ecosystems do we need to, at last, build a “Beloved (connected) Community?”

 

Co-hosted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), the live-streamed webinar — “Normalcy, Never Again” — takes its name from the spirit of King’s August 28, 1963 address and will serve as a rallying point to reaffirm that the digital equity movement will not accept business as usual or be managed into irrelevance.

Sponsored once again by UTOPIA Fiber, the B4DE livestream is slated for August 19th at 3 p.m. ET and will bring together national policy experts, local leaders, and community advocates working in the trenches of digital inclusion. 

Registration is now open above

The livestream will be available (and later archived) onFacebook,YouTube, andLinkedIn with live viewer questions answered by the invited speakers and presenters, which is still being finalized. We will also be live posting from the Community Broadband NetworksBluesky page.

Register online.

Broadband Breakfast looks at the Farm Bill, economic impact and BEAD in Minnesota

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The Daily Yonder posts an article from Broadband Breakfast’s Drew Clark about broadband in rural areas. It starts with a look at the impact of the Farm Bill on Reconnect funding…

The current fight [related to the Farm Bill] between the House and Senate over SNAP funding levels has been the loudest obstacle to passage, and proved to be the case on Thursday. But tucked inside the Farm Bill’s rural development title is a provision that governs the future of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ReConnect broadband program.
eConnect has provided more than $4.4 billion in loans and grants for rural broadband deployment since 2018, reaching some of America’s most remote and expensive-to-serve communities. The House Farm Bill, passed in April by a narrow 224-200 margin, would make ReConnect permanent.

But the House version sets minimum project speeds at just 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads and 25 Mbps for uploads. And it restricts eligibility to areas lacking 25 Mbps for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads for service. Critics say that – as with previous broadband programs such as the Connect America Fund deploying broadband at 10 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads, such low thresholds would doom Rural America to a lower tier of service.

The proposed Senate version takes a more ambitious approach. In addition to making ReConnect permanent, it would use higher required speeds and broader eligibility. At a previous hearing on the topic before the Senate Agriculture Committee, Jesse Shekleton, director of Broadband Operations at Jo-Carroll Energy pushed for the higher speed standard. “Demands for bandwidth on farms will continue to grow,” he said

The Farm Bill also matters for broadband beyond ReConnect. Both the House and Senate versions would codify technical assistance for rural broadband planning and include provisions preventing ReConnect from overlapping with the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) grant program of the U.S. Commerce Department.

Looks at economic impact…

Broadband and rural economic development was the subject of Wednesday’s Broadband Breakfast Live Online discussion. In it, panelists said that broadband has become the price of admission for a rural community rather than a growth strategy on its own.

Well-connected rural counties post 18% higher per capita income and roughly 210% higher business growth than underserved peers, according to a Center for Rural Innovation study cited by Bartlett Cleland, executive director of the Innovation Economy Alliance.

And there’s a look at BEAD in Minnesota…

But being approved [for BEAD] is not the same as being built. Minnesota’s projects will reach 74,739 locations with $378.9 million in federal money and nearly $190 million in matching funds. The state must place its remaining initial projects under contract by Oct. 8. Getting the first one signed took more than 18 rounds of revisions with federal reviewers.

And often, the fights are over poles. Electric cooperatives, which own much of the existing pole infrastructure in rural America and are well-positioned to build broadband alongside it, are finding BEAD’s pole attachment rules onerous. Two co-ops said they turned down tentative BEAD awards entirely because compliance costs made the projects unworkable. 

NTIA, however, has defended this pole-attachment policy as necessary for deployment.

MN OBD’s Bree Maki talks about impact of inflation on BEAD at the Mountain Connect conference

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Broadband Breakfast reports...

As Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program projects begin to get underway, rising project costs could be a potential pain point.

“We are seeing this across the board with providers,” said Bree Maki, executive director of Minnesota’s broadband office. She spoke at the Mountain Connect conference here in Denver.

Applicants bid for grants under the $42.45 billion BEAD program nearly one year ago, and under new Trump administration rules that prioritized cost-efficient builds. In the meantime, inflation has continued apace and AI companies’ demand for American-made fiber has grown.

EVENT Aug 13: MN Broadband Task Force – presentation on Broadband Workforce Training

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As usual, I will be attending and archiving the meeting. Here’s the agenda from the Office of Broadband Development…

Agenda: Broadband Task Force, August Meeting

Date: 08/13/2026

Virtual Meeting Join the meeting now.

· Meeting ID and Pass Code: 276 968 050 478 96 and dG7PZ6Cs · Dial in by phone: +1 651-395-7448,,140848162# or Find a local number · Join on a video conferencing device: Tenant key: mn@m.webex.com and Video ID: 115 639 359 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 June Task Force meeting.

10:15 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. – Presentation from Kate Laughlin, Executive Director, Association for Rural & Small Libraries and Brooke Van Eyk, Development Director, Association for Rural & Small Libraries.

10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. – Presentation from C-Tech’s Sara Syverson on Broadband Workforce Training: Building Career Pathways Through Hands-On Learning

11:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. – Office of Broadband Development (OBD) overview and updates from Bree Maki (Executive Director, OBD).

11:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Open the floor to other business, September’s meeting plans, and meeting wrap-up.

“AI relies on access to broadband connectivity” and that’s an issue in remote areas

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The following video doesn’t come from Minnesota. It is from the Indigenous Artificial Intelligence Gathering at the Mila Institute in Montreal, and they are talking about broadband being the barrier to accessing AI in Nunavut and other remote areas. I thought it might speak to some readers, who are experiencing the lack of broadband.

Data center lawsuit could cost Inver Grove Heights taxpayers millions (Dakota County)

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KSTP Eyewitness News reports…

A legal fight over a data center could cost Inver Grove Heights residents millions if the city loses.

The city is being sued by a data center company that submitted its application and said it was in good standing with the city before the Inver Grove Heights City Council approved a one-year moratorium on data centers.

City leaders learned Monday night that losing the lawsuit could cost $20 million — Mayor Brenda Dietrich put that figure into perspective, noting that taxpayers would be footing the bill.

“A resident’s city taxes would go from $1,833 to $3,053, which is an annual increase of $1,220 or 67%. So, just framing that up in real dollar amounts,” said Dietrich.
A city lawyer said Monday the lawsuit would be dropped if the city excludes Q’Levr from that recently passed one-year data center moratorium. Q’Levr wants to build a 54-thousand-square-foot facility at the former Travel Tags building along Carmen Avenue East.
The council voted to change the moratorium to exclude the company, but there are still two more readings before a final vote.

The city is asking for input…

As it sits now, the city is asking people to send written comments. The mayor and council would have to add a public hearing as the process moves forward, and at least two council members supported that Monday night.

Outage at 511 Building in Mpls suspected cause of telecommunications disruptions last week

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MPR reports…

A power failure at a downtown Minneapolis data center called the 511 Building is likely behind disruptions to several government services last week.

The Midwest Internet Cooperative Exchange is housed in the facility and confirmed the outage to MPR News. Its partners include some of the public-sector networks that were affected, including Dakota County 911.

Some voting machines also lost internet connectivity, and state agency websites were affected. It’s unclear if the same outage is behind the pause in flights at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that same day.

Metro State University cybersecurity expert Faisal Kaleem said the data center is a crucial connection point.

I worked at the 511 Building when MRNet was there. I used to give tours of the hub room. It was an integral location for the Internet in Minnesota back then. While there’s a lot more redundancy today, it still is a key player.

Minnesota Rural Electric Association’s Energy Issues Summit includes power and data center discussions

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KFGO reports…

As Minnesota electric cooperatives navigate rising infrastructure costs, increasing demand for electricity and significant changes in the nation’s energy landscape, affordability and reliability emerged as a theme during the Minnesota Rural Electric Association’s Energy Issues Summit held August 5-6 in Bloomington, Minnesota.

More than 200 cooperative leaders, directors and industry experts gathered to discuss the challenges and opportunities shaping the future of electricity in Minnesota. Topics ranged from grid reliability and data center growth to energy policy and economic trends. Besides a myriad of topics, the conference started off with a presentation about affordability and trends in the industry.

More on data centers…

Conference sessions explored how emerging trends such as large-scale data centers are adding to electricity demand while also presenting opportunities if growth is managed appropriately. Industry experts discussed the importance of ensuring new large electric loads pay their fair share of system costs while helping spread fixed costs across more consumers.

Tom’s Hardware reports 500+ local bans on new data center developments in US

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Tom’s Hardware reports…

The number of local bans on new data center developments jumped to over 500 in July, according to recent data. Local politicians in the United States are refusing to approve new data center construction in greater numbers, posing a threat to the expansion required by AI firms to provide the capacity needed to power the new technology. The analysis, conducted by The Information from legal documents and local news reports, shows that this isn’t a partisan issue.

Republican- and Democrat-run states, towns and counties have all begun to block new data center projects, with Texas and New York both prominent entries from both sides of the political divide, and with the majority of the bans appearing in the Midwest and South, according to the report.

More details on Harmony City Council meeting (Aug 5) on data center (Fillmore County)

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I wrote about the Aug 5, Harmony City Council meeting earlier, but The Fillmore County Journal provides a more complete account, starting with…

In a joint planning session on August 5 the Harmony City Council, the Harmony EDA and the Harmony Planning and Zoning came together to review a draft data center ordinance for the city. Mayor Steve Donney opened the meeting and explained that there would be no public comment; the public was encouraged to submit written comments following the meeting.

City Attorney Greg Schieber introduced Soren Mattick, a municipal attorney from the Twin Cities who was assisting Harmony with the ordinance. Harmony had been approached by MiEnergy last fall about the possibility of building a data center in Harmony. Since the city had no ordinance on the books about such centers, the EDA, P & Z and council began a series of five or six meetings to consider the item.

Mattick shared that the main concerns with data centers were electricity and water consumption, noise and overall environmental concerns. Using a slideshow presentation, Mattick walked the group through the draft ordinance.

The ordinance would provide for a CUP (conditional use permit) for data centers. This means that a company would need to apply to the council for a permit before proceeding with development. A public hearing would be required, which would give the public opportunity to share any concerns.

Elk River adopts one-year data center moratorium (Sherburne County)

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News Break reports…

The Elk River City Council unanimously approved a one-year moratorium on new data center development Aug. 3, giving the city time to study the rapidly growing industry and develop regulations before considering future proposals.

The action came after the applicant seeking to develop a data center in Elk River formally withdrew its requests for a zoning ordinance amendment and a conditional use permit.

The community was engaged…

The vote came after weeks of packed public hearings, emotional testimony and intense community debate over a proposal that drew widespread opposition from residents concerned about noise, environmental impacts, energy use and the long-term effects of locating a large-scale data center in Elk River.

What does it mean?

“The moratorium does two things,” Carlton told the council. “First, it prohibits all data center development applications, including land use applications, rezoning requests and similar proposals. In other words, all data center development is prohibited during the moratorium.”

He said the second purpose is to direct staff to begin studying what a data center ordinance should include.