We’ve been tracking the progress of Redwood County as they look at broadband for their community. As you may recall, they were less than happy with their ranking in the Connect Minnesota broadband mapping and ranking as they were shown as one of the 10 most underserved counties.

But they didn’t take that info sitting down – they have been rallying to get more residents using technology and community leaders talking about improving broadband access.

The Redwood Falls Gazette reports that the county has now taken the steps necessary to move forward to look more closely into how to move forward with broadband deployment plans with a feasibility study supported in part by a grant by the Blandin Foundation and matching with local support…

The cost of the study is estimated to be $80,000 with $40,000 of that coming from Blandin and the rest required through matching funds from local groups and agencies.

According to Julie Rath of the RADC, funds have been committed from local Inter-net providers to help meet the required $40,000 match.
There was, however, a gap of up to $25,000 left to make the study happen.

Based on a recommendation from the Redwood County EDA, the Redwood County Board of Commissioners approved allocating up to $25,000 in EDA funds to cover the remaining costs of the study.

Of that funding, approximately $17,000 was funding designated from 2010 that was left unspent, with the remaining $8,000 coming from the 2011 EDA budget.