April News from the Blandin on Broadband Blog

Blandin Commits to Broadband Through 2014
At the Blandin Foundation’s March board meeting, trustees chose to continue the Foundation’s investment in high-speed broadband through 2014. http://wp.me/p3if7-1Es

New Broadband Maps
An early Spring seems to have given rise to new broadband maps. The NTIA recently released a map that tracks progress on all of their ARRA-funded projects, including Blandin Foundation’s Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) initiative. http://wp.me/p3if7-1G5 Connect Minnesota also unveiled updated maps with an improved interface. http://wp.me/p3if7-1FW

Conferences & Convening
Many broadband-related events were held in April:

• The Minnesota Broadband Task Force met at Unisys in Eagan in April. It was an opportunity for Task Force members to hear about some of Dakota County’s forward-thinking planning in terms of streamlining technology policy and developing public-private partnerships to promote improved infrastructure. http://wp.me/p3if7-1Fz
• The Minnesota High Tech Association Spring Conference highlighted business applications of broadband including social media and cloud computing. http://wp.me/p3if7-1Gb
• The University of Minnesota and Department of Homeland Security lead discussions on cyber security from the personal, enterprise and national perspective. http://wp.me/p3if7-1FU
• At the Humphrey Institute, the TISP Forum featured Eagan’s data center as an example of a successful public-private partnership. Presenters spoke about how policies, specifically State tax credits for data centers, have an impact on business and infrastructure in Minnesota. http://wp.me/p3if7-1F6

Local Broadband News 

Anoka County
Anoka County’s ARRA-funded fiber project progresses; they will soon be looking for Last Mile providers for partnership. http://wp.me/p3if7-1Gi

Brainerd
Consolidated Telecommunications Co. (CTC) went to Washington DC for the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association’s Legislative & Policy Conference to speak with Rep. Chip Cravaack and Sen. Al Franken about their concerns with recent changes and proposed changes with the FCC. http://wp.me/p3if7-1ES

Brewster, Heron Lake, Lakefield, Okabena, Round Lake
Fiber construction is nearly complete in Brewster, Heron Lake, Lakefield, Okabena and Round Lake. http://wp.me/p3if7-1EM

Cloquet Valley
With support from the Blandin Foundation, Cloquet Valley is organizing an investigation into bringing better broadband to seven rural townships north of Duluth. http://wp.me/p3if7-1Gf

Duluth
Nextera Communications plans to expand its wireless services to the Duluth area. http://wp.me/p3if7-1EU

Faribault, Fairmont, Alexandria, Marshall and Crookston
PCs for People visited Faribault, Fairmont, Alexandria, Marshall and Crookston where they were able to accept local computer donations, process and repair the donations and leave working computers to be awarded to local, deserving recipients. (Check the article for towns planning a future visit from PCs for People.) http://wp.me/p3if7-1FK

Fergus Falls
Forward Fergus Falls sets a goal to become a telework leader. With the help of the local broadband provider, businesses, residents and a new Telework Center they are well on their way to meeting the goal. http://wp.me/p3if7-1Ez

International Falls
PCs for People and Rainy River Community College partner to get computers and broadband connection into the hands of households that wouldn’t otherwise have it for a MIRC-sponsored project. http://wp.me/p3if7-1F2

Marshall
Local businesses receive University of Minnesota Extension website development training. http://wp.me/p3if7-1FG

Minneapolis
The Minnesota Opera creates a stir with innovate use of Twitter during performance. http://wp.me/p3if7-1Fp

Morris
University of Minnesota Morris solves landlord-renter issues with a website that helps keep everyone informed of their rights, their responsibilities and the local rental market. They maintain a database of licensed and available rental properties. http://wp.me/p3if7-1EJ

Northeast Minnesota
The Northeast Service Coop (NESC) provides an update on their ARRA-funded middle mile network, which includes 415 miles constructed in 2011. http://wp.me/p3if7-1Ew

St Paul
Bridging the Digital Divide conference brought several community development practitioners together to discussion tactics for improving access and adoption to technology in unserved communities. Recommendations including training, application and a policy approach. http://wp.me/p3if7-1FI

Sibley County
Sibley County Commissioners vote to move ahead with fiber plan http://wp.me/p3if7-1G2, after originally postponing the vote. http://wp.me/p3if7-1FZ

Events

May 2 – Virtual Tour of Connect MN Maps – 10 am http://tinyurl.com/88gstzr

May 8 – Minnesota Broadband Task Force meeting – (Winona) http://tinyurl.com/7n2syt8

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.)

Looking for local MIRC (Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities) events? Check the MIRC Google calendar: http://tinyurl.com/3oz5uzh or University of Minnesota Extension MIRC calendar http://tinyurl.com/66vxghj

Stirring the Pot

PART ONE

NTCA, the industry organization for rural telecom coops, came out with a very nice white paper this week “The Smart Rural Community.” http://tinyurl.com/cgjjpay I chuckle to myself (the hazards of the home office) as I ponder whether one would rather live in a smart community or an intelligent community.  Or which makes the better acronym for communities here in Minnesota – MIRC or SMiRC!  No one likes a smirc!

More importantly, the report highlights great examples of active use of technology applications in rural communities, including some here in Minnesota, that are facilitated by quality networks, engaged providers and forward looking businesses, educators, health care administrators and farmers. I am excited to think that our MIRC demonstration communities have enough excellent examples in all these areas to fill an entire book.

The NTCA report highlighted the leadership of their member coops in these case studies and that is great to see.  In our MIRC project, there are a couple of the 11 communities where providers have been very actively engaged and sharing leadership of effort to drive adoption of broadband.  In just a few others, providers are regular partners and participate as called upon for specific activities.  I believe that the balance of the communities could benefit from stronger interaction and shared effort to achieve the common goal of more users with more uses of broadband.  With reluctant providers or where there are multiple providers, these types of partnerships can be difficult. Yet the goal of expanding the pie and driving sophistication and bandwidth use should be one that provides a platform for collaboration.  As we move forward and continue our broadband and Intelligent Community activities, I am very interested to hear about how we can enable better collaboration between providers and communities.

A surprise treat near the end of this document – a statement by the NTCA establishing 20 Mb to the home as the minimum required for a smart community.  This is a clear rejection of the FCC’s woefully inadequate 4 Mb standard for rural communities.

PART TWO

The new Connect MN maps are out and the areas unserved by broadband continue to shrink.  By the end of 2012 construction season, additional areas will be served.  My favorite map is the one that shows the density of unserved areas below.  As we know, there are places in Minnesota where few people live; the BWCA and some of the large peat bogs in north central and northwest Minnesota are examples, but there are still quite a number of areas (gold and brown) where good numbers of people live and are unserved.  I have been working with some of these people in Redwood County, Kanabec County and the Cloquet Valley area north of Duluth between the iron range and the North Shore.  I have received calls from rural Isanti County and the Wadena School District.  They live in areas with no broadband and providers with no plans to provide broadband.  These areas have a long way to go and not many tools designed to help them.

The second map shows (dark green and blue colors) the places that generally meet the NTCA standard of 20 Mb, which also matches the top end of the State of MN broadband goal.  Many community networks actually meet this standard as do some rural areas that are served by cooperatives.  So the state broadband task force has two significant tasks – encouraging broadband deployment to those without access and encouraging upgrades to those with broadband that currently do not meet the state or NTCA standard for a smart community.

Bill Coleman helps communities make the connection between telecommunications and economic development.  As principal in Community Technology Advisors http://tinyurl.com/3f4dx7g for ten years, he assists community, foundation and corporate clients develop and implement programs of broadband infrastructure investment and technology promotion and training. Bill is working with the Blandin Foundation on the MIRC Initiative http://tinyurl.com/2c6mhh4, Community Broadband Resource Program http://tinyurl.com/cseu7e and other broadband projects.