Thanks for the heads up from Chris Mitchell on progress made by Tonkaconnect towards Community FTTH. (Chris provides concise notes on why progress is good – but the path can be arduous.) Tonkaconnect has been promoting FTTH in the area for a while now;they recently completed a market survey to determine if there was interest in a community fiber optics project.

The first paragraph from an article on the surveys in the local paper paints a picture of the results…

If the price is low enough, people in the area would be interested in becoming customers of a fiber-based network operated by the Lake Minnetonka Communications Commission (LMCC).

The survey was conducted by CCG and included telephone surveys of 1,774 individuals living in Deephaven, Excelsior, Greenwood, Independence, Long Lake, Loretto, Maple Plain, Medina, Minnetonka Beach, Minnetrista, Orono, St. Bonifacius, Shorewood, Spring Park, Tonka Bay, Victoria, Woodland and Mound.

The Tonkaconnect folks consider the results to be positive and it sounds like there is interest in moving forward but that nothing has been budgeted for further action yet – however there is a meeting planned for June to discuss the results and next steps. (While there are no details there yet, I suspect that the Tonkaconnect web site is a good place to look for more information on the meeting.)