Thanks to Ann Higgins for the heads up on an article on fiber plans from Farmington to Rochester outlined in the Post Bulletin…
Arvig, a family-owned telecommunications provider based in Perham, Minn., is installing a fiber-optics line from Farmington to Rochester and create more digital infrastructure for this part of the state.
The line goes west out of Rochester, turns north along Minnesota Highway 56 toward Northfield, and then into Farmington.
It completes a system that the company started two years ago, when they installed roughly 650 miles of fiber network in the Minneapolis area and about 40 miles of cable around the perimeter of Rochester for a private carrier.
Their plan is a little different from the usual rural deployment. They are focused on enterprise access, not residential access…
Klinnert [director of network operations for Arvig] says that his company is interested in developing retail markets along the route, but does not plan to offer residential internet service itself.
“We’re not trying to go house to house with fiber,” he says, “but would we be wholesaling connectivity or capacity to someone such as a cable company? Yes.”
It will be interesting to see if another company (or maybe the local communities) steps forward to provide residential service.
Blandin on Broadband 
Unfortunately most carriers would be reluctant to make the high-cost investment to bring fiber to remote rural homes knowing that another carrier has already “cherry-picked” the more lucrative commercial accounts that could make the investment pay off a little faster.