Monthly Archives: September 2010

Mobile inspectors help get Jefferson County on mend after storm

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks to Ann Higgins for the heads up on this nice municipal broadband application near Denver…

Last summer a terrible hail storm hit Jefferson County Colorado, which usually mean a secondary storm of work and waiting for approvals for repairs. But…

Earlier in 2009, the county acquired a mobile tool that allows inspectors and other remote staff to access information on permits, licenses, properties and more, without having to return to the office. Using Amanda Mobile, part of a larger business performance platform called Amanda, field inspectors now have full access to key data: blueprints, site plans, GPS apps, work schedules and other information.

…

Last year, the storms in Jefferson County led to nearly 7,500 reroofing permit requests worth $1.1 million in fees. With the ability to access or file reports in the field, local government workers had an advantage they never had before — the ability to respond to requests without returning to the office and to share to-do lists with other inspectors to get jobs done faster. In last summer’s storm, fewer than two dozen inspectors managed a workload four times greater than the previous year.

Peck said Jefferson County paid $356,000 for the Amanda platform, which includes Amanda Mobile. Ten local divisions, such as the fire districts and health department, have been using various products from the vendor for the last 10 years.

Northeast Minnesota gets good news from ARRA

Posted on by
1

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the funding of 43 new broadband infrastructure projects. I am pleased to report that Minnesota had two projects funded (and one ND grant helps us too)…

Arrowhead Electric Cooperative, Inc.
$16,137,484
This approximately $16.1 million award, matched by $600,000 in private contribution, will allow Arrowhead Electric Cooperative, Inc. to build a last-mile FTTH network to serve northeastern Cook County. Because of the topography of the land and dense forestation, fixed wireless is not an option. This wireline, passive fiber-optic network will offer up to 100 Mbps symmetrical service. Approximately, 11,363 people stand to benefit, as do roughly 138 businesses and 63 community institutions. In addition to the more than 87 jobs the company estimates this project will create upfront, it will provide a foundation for economic growth and job creation for decades to come.

Lake County
$66,369,064
This approximately $66.3 million award, matched by $3.5 million in private contribution, will allow Lake County to offer FTTP advanced voice, video and data services to every home and business in Lake and eastern Saint Louis Counties. Approximately 37,000 people stand to benefit, as do roughly 1,000 businesses and 98 community institutions. In addition to the 510 jobs Lake County estimates this project will create upfront, it will provide a foundation for economic growth and job creation for decades to come.

Red River Rural Telephone Association, Inc.
ND (96%) MN (4%)
This approximately $9 million award, matched by $1 million in private contribution will allow Red River Rural Telephone Association, Inc., to offer FTTP broadband service speeds of up to 100 Mbps. The project will install 690 route miles of fiber-optic cable to serve six rural exchanges in Ransom, Richland, and Sargent Counties in North Dakota as well as Wilkin County in Minnesota, and Roberts and Marshall Counties in South Dakota. Approximately 2,600 people stand to benefit, as do roughly 228 businesses and 6 community institutions. In addition to the 110 jobs the company estimates this project will create upfront, it will provide a foundation for economic growth and job creation for decades to come.

You can see the full list on the USDA web site.

According to a timeline the White House posted in August, it appears as if this will be the last announcement made from the USDA/RUS – however we are still waiting for announcements from the Department of Commerce (NTIA).

Monticello case study tour

Posted on by
Reply

I am thankful to the folks in Monticello for letting me be a stowaway on their tour for legislators. (You can read another report of the day in the Monticello Times.) The 30-second reminder of situation in Monticello – the city decided to deploy FTTH because they recognized that the city’s residents and businesses would benefit from faster broadband; the incumbent providers did not see the need. Monticello moved forward. The incumbents sued. After much litigation, Monticello won and now the city is probably the best wired city in the Midwest. Monticello became an important case both locally and nationally. Locally, it stirred the pot on the required super majority for municipal telecommunications referendums. Nationally, I think many municipalities watched to see what happened in terms of incumbent lawsuits hampering municipal plans.

The tour started at the FiberNet Head-End Building in Monticello. We got a tour of their network operations center, where we could see where the video, voice and data magic happen. Then we moved onto a construction site where we saw folks in the field installing fiber. It’s always kind of fun to see something like that in action. Seeing the spray paint on the street near the digging area bring to life the right of way issues that seem so much easier from your desk. Also it was impressive to see how unobtrusive the process seems to be – although the installers did admit that it’s less obtrusive for some than others. Some end up with large utility-type boxes on their property.

Right now Monticello has 1200 customers but there are 5500 passing (potential customers) in the community – or at least there will be once the installation is complete. They add customers at a good clip, in fact keeping up with demand is the current worry. One thing I hadn’t realized was that not only to customers get super-fast Internet access, they also get access to a 1 Gbps in-town connection. Imagine the applications for that with access to local classrooms, business, sporting events. Also they are working on a local studio to provide more local programming.

City Administrator Jeff O’Neill had some words of wisdom for any other cities looking into fiber, which I think helped the legislators frame the issue in terms that applied to their role in Minnesota:

  • Do the research – be able to answer questions
  • Conduct a referendum – and the initial vote sets the tone
  • Must have- City Council and Mayor with Courage – dedicated staff and capable attorneys
  • Maintain a strong will in face of lawsuits and fear mongering
  • Keep telling the truth and maintain accountability
  • Maintaining high road on consistent basis
  • A preexisting reservoir of trust I your government is helpful
  • Trust that citizens see through falsehoods
  • Like any new venture – it’s lots of hard work – keep at it
  • Believe in the cause and the ability of the organization to succeed.

Jeff pointed out that the city wasn’t necessary looking for extra tasks to fill their spare moments – but they were driven to look into telecommunications when they realized that was the only way to get the community the broadband they needed to drive economic development today and tomorrow. While they plan to break even on the project – that is not their own or primary goal. If they are able to save taxpayers money and/or provide services without increasing taxes, that’s a win too.

It was an interesting look at how things are going in Monticello. I think the legislators seemed to find it valuable. I was surprised to see that there were quite a few legislators there from suburb communities. I think more policymakers are realizing that broadband is a necessity, not a luxury.

Blandin Broadband Strategy Board Notes

Posted on by
1

The Blandin Broadband Strategy Board is instrumental in advising the Blandin Broadband Initiative. It’s a mix of broadband providers, community leaders and broadband users. Their perspectives have been valuable in helping Blandin set priorities, fund projects and direct attention in terms of broadband policy. The Strategy Board met a week ago and we thought it would be interesting for readers to get a glimpse at the highlights of that meeting.

First the group heard from Pam Lehmann, Director of the EDA in Lac qui Parle. She was kind enough to share her PowerPoint, which really details their roadmap from starting to think about broadband at the 2007 Blandin Broadband Conference to the recent announcement of their ARRA broadband award.

Pam’s presentation, a list of Minnesota-based ARRA funded projects (posted here on Monday) and a windfall of $600,000 in the MIRC budget spurred a conversation on the impact of the ARRA funding on the broadband landscape. ARRA funding will determine many of the future served and unserved areas. It seems as though there is an opportunity to create tools that would help the unserved communities. Some ideas came up:

  • A map or environmental scan that detailed access, penetration and programs at the community level
  • A study of the successful broadband models in Minnesota
  • A pre-planning community tool for community leaders looking at broadband – something that might help them recognize the models that might be the best fit for them

Blandin already has some tools in place for communities looking to create and deploy a broadband plan – but the ARRA funding and National Broadband Plan have really been game changers. The ARRA funding is expected to be awarded in the next month. Once the funding is complete it may make sense to revisit this issue.

Speaking of the National Broadband Plan – it was good to get some of the views of the Strategy Board – the Universal Service Fund was a hot topic – because it too may be a game changer. The Plan suggests making changes that will help fund broadband deployment in unserved areas, which will make it easier for more competition to enter new areas – but there is little to no funding for ongoing broadband maintenance. The question is how will that have an impact on providers currently serving rural areas.

Finally, the group heard from Jack Geller, getting a sneak preview of a study he has been working on looking at broadband and computer penetration in Rural Minnesota. (The data was collected by the Center for Rural Policy & Development and provided to the MIRC project by an agreement with that organization.) He has been kind enough to allow me to share some advance news…

Jack presented the Technology Adoption Curve: –> First adoption come to the innovators -> then early adopters ->  the majority -> finally – the laggards

In many ways – we’re working to get the laggards online.

In rural Minnesota – here are the stats:
Computer in home 74%
Internet in home 70%
Broadband in home 64%

(Interesting note: of folks who didn’t have computers, 55 percent had cell phones – maybe that’s a road to broadband interest.)

Why do folks still use dialup?
Too expensive 61%
Use elsewhere 3.5%
Little use 15.1%
Not available 20.5%

It’s an interesting perspective that may be helpful in encouraging more broadband subscribers (a primary goal of ARRA projects) and a goal noted both in the National Broadband Plan and the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force Recommendations. Increased subscriber rates help make a business case of commercial providers. Ubiquitous broadband also offers a channel for providing public services (healthcare, education safety-net resources) to people more affordably.

Jack’s statistics are just a sneak preview of the full study, which will be released later this fall in conjuncture with the Blandin Broadband Conference.

St Paul attracting tech businesses

Posted on by
Reply

Earlier this week I reported that St Paul was named tops for residential download speeds. Today I learned that St Paul has been picking up tech businesses like hotcakes. According to the Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal, Instrumental Inc., Microsoft’s Regional Office and Cray have moved into St Paul recently. It just seemed worth juxtaposing those tidbits.

I have listened to Rick King many time talk about why broadband in Minnesota is important to an organization such as Thomson Reuters. It’s not because they are concerned about their corporate connection – providers will always address those very high end needs – but because they have wanted to have a workforce that could work as effectively from home as in the office. It’s not just a matter of convenience – it’s redundancy plan, it’s a more palatable way for employees to attend meeting in different time zones, it keeps employees off the roads at rush hours and improves the corporate carbon footprint.

Chris Mitchell to speak on Net Neutrality

Posted on by
1

Chris Mitchell will be speaking on Monday in St Paul about Net Neutrality. The event is actually the DFL Education Happy Hour and while I’d normally keep clear of anything with such an overtly political slant, the topic was too on track for most readers for me to not mention it. (If your favorite political party has an upcoming event related to broadband policy, I’d be happy to mention that too.)

Here are the details…

Monday, September 13
4:30-6:00pm
Kieran’s Irish Pub, Poet’s Corner Room
Corner of 6th St & 1st Ave N
Minneapolis, MN 55401

Chris Mitchell will join us in September to talk about the importance of net neutrality (check out this month’s featured article for a definition) and the power of community-based broadband networks for making it possible. He’s Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Telecommunications as Commons Project and author of muninetworks.org.

Why upload speeds are important

Posted on by
Reply

Below is an email I received today:

Next week, former President Bill Clinton will sit down for a YouTube interview, in which all of the questions will come from YouTube users.

As a top uploader in the News & Politics category, we thought you might be interested in submitting a question.

Here’s how to submit your video question (video questions are strongly preferred):

1. Record yourself asking the question and upload it to your YouTube account.
2. Visit http://www.youtube.com/citizentube and look for the Google Moderator box. Click “Submit Question” and then “Attach a YouTube video”.
3. Paste the link of your YouTube video question and click submit.
4. Tell all of your subscribers to vote for your question!

The deadline to submit is Monday, 9/13 at midnight PT.

First, my ranking as a top uploader in the News & Politics category is in jeopardy – because since I came home from Ireland in July my upload speeds in St Paul have been woeful! Second and perhaps more importantly, this is an opportunity that is only available to folks who have access to sufficient broadband upload speeds. Those without access are silenced. That may sound a little dramatic – but in terms of personal and community advocacy I think it’s becoming increasingly true. A recent study by Burson-Marsteller (a public relations consultancy) found that nearly all (97 percent) political advocacy groups are using at least one social media platform to communicate with stakeholders. Now it turns out their sample was not large but in my dealing with local nonprofits I have found the same.

Broadband helps decide Australian election

Posted on by
1

Thanks to Mike Horwath for the heads up on the outcome of the recent Australian election – or at least for the broadband perspective. According to Ars Technica…

Australia has broken a two-and-a-half week deadlock resulting from its August 21 national elections. No party won an outright majority, and forming a coalition government proved tricky. Numerous issues were on the table, but one of the key differentiators between the parties was the future of the government-backed NBN Company—the entity that oversees construction and operation of the national broadband network.

The Labor Party and the Greens both saw broadband—specifically fiber optic broadband—as key to the country’s future, and both pledged to support the AU$43 billion decade-long project. The center-right Liberal Party wanted to gut the entire project, cutting NBN and instead offering some cash to make DSL available to more people. With the hung parliament resulting from Australia’s election, it became clear that the winning coalition would determine the future of the country’s broadband network.

The deadlock was eventually broken by three independents. One broke for the Liberals. Another cast his vote with Labor. The third, Tony Windsor, is a rural MP who believes that broadband is the key issue in the election.

It’s that kind of thinking that gets you to world leader status in terms of broadband.

Thanks to Ann Higgins on another article from Australia…

Alcatel-Lucent and Nextgen Networks, which owns and operates Australia’s third largest fibre network, have successfully demonstrated a delivery of broadband traffic at 100 Gbps speed over Nextgen Networks’ backbone network. This demo, which leverages Alcatel-Lucent’s converged optical and IP technologies, would enable the transfer of more than 100,000 mp3 files in 60 seconds or the live streaming of more than 15,000 HDTV channels concurrently.

Earlier this year, Alcatel-Lucent and Nextgen Networks were awarded a contract for the Australian government’s Regional Backbone Blackspots Programme. It’s a glimpse at the power of public-private partnership.

Hometown plea for broadband

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks to Ann Higgins for the heads up on a great guest post on Broadband Breakfast – Join the Campaign to Bring Internet Home to Mom. It’s a very clever plea from Jennifer Clark, “ a full-time mother of two children, and has previously written for BroadbandBreakfast.com. She brings a keen understanding of community infrastructure together with a background in congressional politics and community issues. She has a Master’s in Education.”

She answers a question that I think all policymakers ought to consider: Why mom needs the internet?

It would help a lot of policymakers recognize that while home users don’t need broadband for 100 people – they often need connection powerful enough to do 100 things.

Blandin September eNews

Posted on by
Reply

News from the Blandin on Broadband Blog

The FCC Comes to Minneapolis Twice
There were two big broadband policy meetings in the Twin Cities in August. First there was a Public FCC Hearing featuring Commissioners Copps and Clyburn and Senator Franken. The featured guests heard from a wide range of residents on their opinions on Net Neutrality. http://tinyurl.com/2bm4omp The following week, Senator Klobuchar held a meeting with FCC Chair Genachowski where they heard from MN ARRA award winners and hopefuls as well as from former Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force members. http://tinyurl.com/2cl6xy4

International Broadband Standings
The FCC has tracked information on countries, their broadband penetration, speed goals and national strategies, when they have one. It puts the US ranking and National Broadband Plan in perspective. http://tinyurl.com/28zk5cd

Minnesota ARRA Awards
With just two more ARRA announcements scheduled (one planned for this week) http://tinyurl.com/2dlqu28, Minnesota has already been awarded $150 million with even more broadband and projects coming into the state from awards based out of other states that include a Minnesota component. http://tinyurl.com/2d565hu

Minnesota Broadband Advisory Task Force
The Department of Commerce has named the new Task Force members http://tinyurl.com/2b448xh. They held their first meeting soon after their names had been announced. http://tinyurl.com/2acy4ls

MIRC Update
The MIRC (Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities) Partners http://tinyurl.com/2c6mhh4 met in August. http://tinyurl.com/2apgyz6 One notable trend is the in-roads that are being built that will provide lasting channels among partners – both for broadband and ongoing collaboration.

Local Broadband News

Alexandria
Local ISPs meet with policymakers to discussion their concerns with the National Broadband Plan and its tiered speed goals. http://tinyurl.com/27zzqcr

Carver County
Carver County receives nearly $6 million to offer affordable middle-mile broadband service in south central Minnesota. http://tinyurl.com/2957feq

Cook County
Cook County celebrates the fiber optic backbone entering their area through North East Service Cooperative’s ARRA award; yet they await word on their last mile ARRA application. http://tinyurl.com/28wrubw

Duluth
Duluth takes a look at how the ARRA awards are coming into their town. http://tinyurl.com/38xbzv7

Iron Range
Aaron Brown asks local leaders to consider broadband as key tool for entrepreneurs on the Range. http://tinyurl.com/386vydg

Kittson, Marshall and Roseau County
Wikstrom Telephone Company is awarded $7.4 million grant to deploy FTTH in Kittson, Marshall and Roseau County. http://tinyurl.com/2645c6b

Lac qui Parle
Lac qui Parle unveiled a mobile computer lab. http://tinyurl.com/25hod3e LqP also celebrates their recent ARRA award announcement.
http://tinyurl.com/2encvl7

Lake County
Lake County is hoping to get good news on their ARRA application, but they are also considering a contingency plan that might include revenue bonds. http://tinyurl.com/2dbj4k9

Le Center
Hazelden uses text messages to support its treatment and recovery patients. http://tinyurl.com/25fz6bl

Minneapolis
LightSquared, a new nationwide 4G-LTE open wireless broadband provider, is coming to Minneapolis. http://tinyurl.com/28lhqu6

Pequot Lakes
Arvig Telephone is awarded more than $5 million to bring high-speed DSL broadband service to unserved establishments in its rural service territory. http://tinyurl.com/2645c6b

Rochester
Enventis Telecom has been awarded $7.2 million in ARRA funding to offer affordable middle-mile broadband service in Minnesota. The project will include connecting Rochester’s Mayo Clinic campus with 12 rural health care facilities throughout southern Minnesota. http://tinyurl.com/292gqwn

Roseau, Thief River Falls, Fox
Sjoberg’s, Inc. receives$866,000 ARRA award to offer FTTH broadband service in Roseau, Thief River Falls, and the hamlet of Fox. http://tinyurl.com/28cbbjf

Ruthton
Woodstock Telephone has received a $15 million ARRA award to expand its fiber network into 15 communities located within 3 counties in Southwest Minnesota. http://tinyurl.com/23m9knv

Sibley County
Sibley County continues with its FTTH feasibility study and holds public meetings in the area to discuss options. http://tinyurl.com/34j3v5d

Southwest Minnesota
Wireless satellite broadband provider KeyOn acquires assets from New Vision to help extend KeyOn’s network footprint in southwestern Minnesota. http://tinyurl.com/2863vry

St Paul
St Paul gets tops ranking for metro broadband, but can we trust the tools? http://tinyurl.com/36l3fjb

(Many stories are gathered from local online newspaper. Unfortunately each newspaper has a different policy in regards to archive news and therefore we cannot guarantee access to all articles cited.)

Events

Looking for more events? Check out TechDotMN’s calendar http://tech.mn/events/. Many events are based in the Twin Cities but it is a comprehensive list. (If you have an upcoming event, consider submitting it.)

Coleman’s Corner

The Blandin Broadband Strategy Board had a very interesting discussion about the changing broadband environment in Minnesota and across the USA. We have seen the adoption of the state broadband goals, the unveiling of the FCC National Broadband Plan, the funding of a variety of broadband infrastructure projects across Minnesota through the stimulus with more to come in the next several weeks. What does it all mean to leaders of communities with no or low-end broadband?

A huge number of questions emerge. Will middle mile projects spur last-mile investments to small and medium size businesses or residential users? Will new middle mile providers find enough customers and revenue to make their business successful? What will spur existing providers to upgrade networks to meet the 4 Mb/1 Mb FCC goal for rural areas? What will happen economically to those areas that do not meet or barely meet this 4 Mb/1 Mb standard compared to those cities and counties that will obtain much higher speed services over networks funded by stimulus funds? Is there an upgrade path from networks improved to meet the 4 Mb/1 Mb goal to networks that can deliver 100 Mb services in the near future?

In Minnesota, what does the CenturyLink purchase of Embarq and pending purchase of Qwest mean for those customers? Some CLECs have publicly questioned CenturyLink’s ability to manage the Qwest network. Communities wonder about CenturyLink’s ability to finance needed upgrades of Qwest exchanges in rural areas. Is more consolidation of telecom providers likely?

What does the future hold? Will there be more federal money for broadband? Will changes in the Universal Service Fund impact Minnesota’s providers in a positive or negative way, possibly hurting small landline companies while helping larger landline or wireless companies?

For community leaders, there will be a great opportunity to learn about these issues and discuss them with both experts and peers at the Blandin Broadband Conference October 13 and 14 in Baxter. If you care about broadband in your community, this is your best opportunity to learn what you need to know in this dynamic issue area. One thing that is clear in the broadband world is that those communities with engaged leadership are the ones that are seeing success; for some communities, years of hard work are now being rewarded with stimulus funding and private sector investment!

Clyburn visit to Minneapolis WorkForce Center

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks to Carol Walsh for the heads on DEED’s video from FCC Commissioner Clyburn’s visit to the South Minneapolis WorkForce Center…

It’s great to hear her view on broadband and heartening to hear her emphasize the need for her to listen to the public if she is going to effectively represent the public.

Broadband on the Range

Posted on by
1

Aaron Brown, an always intriguing voice from the Range, has written a thoughtful article on broadband on the Iron Range. He talks about what I have heard elsewhere referred to as the “swiss cheese” or “donut” network topology we see in rural areas. In either analogy the holes represent the served towns and the dough or cheese represent the unserved areas. It’s easier to fill the holes because there is higher population density, there are more businesses and the further you get from the node, the more expensive it tends to be to provide broadband access.

Brown’s post is called – For Range broadband, entrepreneurs may hold the key. He starts with a great story on a young entrepreneur in Texas who is serving his community with microwave radio towers. Celebrating the notion that entrepreneurs can and may come up with creative solutions. But also entrepreneurs hold the key to economic development in many communities – and they do not need the same infrastructure of the major employers of years ago – they need broadband…

The Range keeps funding power plants that won’t be built and slick new railroads for mining companies capable of paying their own way. Thirty years from now these ideas will seem like a cataclysmic joke. Private small business development is the central ingredient in economic diversification and growth on the Iron Range. Much of the economic growth will be in fields dependent on fast, reliable internet connections. Iron Range Resources has only scraped the tip of the iceberg on this and the towns and state leaders aren’t moving fast enough.

This is a great opportunity for public leadership, but absent that it’s still a great opportunity for private entrepreneurs. I lack the technical knowledge, but if you’re even remotely interested in finding a way to light up northern Minnesota’s internet grid, contact me and I’ll try to help.

St Paul is number 1! But can we trust the test?

Posted on by
3

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune…

Ookla, a well-known Seattle company that measures the speed of Internet connections, says St. Paul has recently become No. 1 in the nation in residential Internet download speeds. Minneapolis is no slouch either, coming in seventh in the current Net Index report.

But there are concerns about the testing tool – because they are considerably higher than Connected Nation found a year and a half ago.

You may remember that the validity of the Ookla speed tests was questioned in February 2009, when Connected Nation first unveiled their preliminary speed results. To their credit, Connected Nation made changes to the test to improve them. And I reported earlier this summer that the Ookla folks have recently improved their tests as well. Although I suspect their improvements involve what is tracked, not how it is tracked.

This time around the concern is that while reporting these numbers as residential, it seems as if some corporate connections may have been included in the mix. The Star Tribune outlines how the data is collected…

Ookla does its surveys of broadband speed in an unusual way. Rather than contact Internet users, it relies on the results from two free websites — Speedtest.net and Pingtest.net — that are available to consumers who want to measure their actual Internet speeds and the quality of their connections. The websites measure how much time it takes consumers to download or upload a certain amount of data, then determines what cities they live in by the Internet addresses of their computers, called the Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses.

Ookla measured at least 75,000 users from every metro area in its city rankings between Feb. 28 and Aug. 29, said spokeswoman Hanna Lane. To make sure the numbers truly reflected consumer Internet speeds, Ookla eliminated all IP addresses that belonged to businesses, she said.

I don’t know how effective that method is. I do know that I don’t come close to those speeds in St Paul. Also I know that rural areas would be pleased to get anything close to it.

Duluth Spin on the ARRA awards

Posted on by
2

I was just talking to someone yesterday at a tour of Monticello’s FTTH network (more on that later) about how hard it has been to get consistent info on the ARRA awards and how poorly the awards are compiled and archived. I’ve tried to create a list for us in Minnesota. But I was excited to see Duluth’s take on the awards from their perspective.

According to the WDIO’s Eyewitness News, the City of Duluth Communication office reports that there will be three new fiber lines running into Duluth…

Duluth to St. Paul – HickoryTech’s subsidiary Enventis was recently awarded a $16.8 million in stimulus dollars to build 428 miles of fiber-optic cable in Greater Minnesota, the backbone of two new high-speed fiber lines. One line will run between Duluth and St. Paul, while the other will run between Brainerd and Fargo. Both are expected to be finished in three years. For more information: http://mankatofreepress.com/local/x1836251772/HickoryTech-gets-grant-to-build-cable

Duluth to Green Bay and Michigan’s UP – Ann Arbor-based not-for-profit Merit Network will construct a 1,210-mile high-speed fiber network in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – with connections to Green Bay, Wis. and Duluth, Minn. – following the award of a $69.6 million federal stimulus grant to fund the project. http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/ann-arbor-based-merit-network-lands-696m-grant-to-expand-broadband-in-michigan/

Duluth to NE Minnesota Communities – In March the Northeast Service Cooperative received a $21.7 million loan, and $21.7 million grant to fund a fiber project to serve the Iron Range of northeast Minnesota. Construction on that project begins in the spring of 2011, and will be completed by June of 2013. That project includes 34 communities throughout Northeast Minnesota, from Willow River to McGregor, and International Falls to Grand Portage. http://www.nesc.k12.mn.us/broadband/mmfp

As the article points out, these are primarily Middle Mile projects – but it’s adding bandwidth and redundancy to the area. And as Duluth Mayor Don Ness comments…

“Whether or not Google selects Duluth, we continue to aggressively pursue all options to enhance our IT capacity. Bandwidth capacity is of growing importance in our ability to compete on a national and international basis.”

Update on Sibley County FTTH feasibility study

Posted on by
4

Thanks to Chris Mitchell (from the Institute for Local Self Reliance) for the detailed update on Sibley County’s feasibility study. (Blandin Foundation is helping Sibley County with a grant to perform their feasibility study.)

According to Chris, there are public meetings happening throughout the area to discuss the potential project. Chris picked up on a couple of themes at the meetings. First – the conflict between serving a whole community and serving the most potentially profitable areas of a community. In rural areas that often means deciding whether or not to serve farms and homes outside city limits…

Winthrop’s City Administrator, Mark Erickson, is committed to serving the farms though. There is little doubt that the project could succeed financially by serving only the towns, which harbor some 80% of the population. But Erickson recognizes that the towns depend on the farmers and that everyone will benefit more from the network if it is universally available.

Chris also points out…

A common theme across all these networks is that the cities really do not want to get involved but are compelled to take responsibility because they have no future without broadband. Economic development and quality of life are very much linked to broadband access

It sounds as if the feasibility study should be completed in early fall.