According to Community Broadband Networks, Annandale residents are frustrated with their current broadband access and have been calling out for improvements…
Yet another Minnesota town is fed up with slow, unreliable Internet access and is examining what it can do to make sure it has the network it needs to succeed in the modern economy.Annandale is 50 miles northwest of Minneapolis with a population of 3,200 and has Windstream as the telephone company.
Windstream, as with other large firms that primarily serve rural America, offers a DSL more suited to the late 1990’s than 2013. It has little capacity to invest in better networks, even if it had the willingness. We’ve covered Windstream several times in previous stories.
After a flood of complaints from residents to City Hall about slow speeds and frequent outages, the City issued a request for proposals for a feasibility study that will explore alternatives to the present reliance on Windstream.
I worked at the telephone company that provided DSL to Annandale prior to Windstream and Iowa Telecom and I can tell you the equipment they are using is still mostly the same equipment I helped install over 12 years ago. It was great for the late 90’s and early 2000’s but is now inadequate by today’s standards. It is doubtful that Windstream will ever install fiber to the home in this area as they stated when they bought us out was that residential service were not their main focus and the only money to be made was in service to businesses. Their main focus was on the return to the shareholders of the company, which is given for a publicly held company and perfectly understandable. Great for shareholders, but not so good for the small customer. If Annandale is to be successful I think they should model their service after Windom and look very closely into forming a cooperative to provide broadband service. They will have a very rough road to travel as is evidenced by what happened in Monticello where TDS and Charter have offered competing services at low prices and basically have made Fibernet unable to meet its financial obligations. Perhaps the best outcome is that the talks that will ensue will spur Windstream to more closely work with the city and offer the service that the citizens need, there is definite need for improvement in this aspect as customer service in this area is definitely in need of improvement. All I know is if the city or the customers in this Windstream area decide to move on with their own solution is that there are many former employees of Lakedale that lost their jobs who would be willing to help the city find success.
It sounds as if you would be very helpful. I’ll see if I can’t pass on your message or perhaps someone will read it here. Thanks for the insights!