Almost $20 million in state grants have gone to 17 communities in Minnesota to expand broadband and make the case to legislators (and the general public) that such investments are wise and have a valuable Return on Investment. I wanted to delve into each project a bit to help us follow the money as it gets deployed. (See other awardee posts.)
Interstate Telecommunications Cooperative (ITC), Hendricks Town FTTP. Awarded $700,000 to bring the town of Hendricks in Lincoln County service that surpasses state speed goals. Underserved customers that would benefit include 377 households and farms, 57 businesses, three home-based businesses and eight community anchor institutions. The full project cost is $1.87 million; the remaining $1.17 million (63 percent) match will be provided by a private investment made by ITC.
Community and Economic Development Impact: The Hendricks Town FTTP Project will promote rural economic development by providing access to state-of-the-art broadband services to 100 percent of the households and businesses in the funded service area. It will expand the educational, economic and health care opportunities for the community. It will also address public safety concerns in the area by delivering highly desirable broadband services to community anchor institutions and wireless towers in the area. The proposed network has the ability to provide broadband data speeds of 1 Gbps or more in the future. ITC and city leaders believe that sustainable broadband adoption will transform this underserved, low- income area into a highly productive community.
With 40 percent broadband coverage, Lincoln County can certainly use the support and Connect Minnesota maps indicate that Lincoln has been hovering around that mark since 2011; the definition of broadband used for the maps in 2011 was slower – but percentage-wise the county remains drastically underserved. Yet I know there has been interest in improvements. A year ago, MVTV voiced an interest in serving Lincoln County with wireless services. (I’m not sure if the plan was to include Hendricks.) Mediacom upgraded services in three communities (Ivanhoe, Lake Benton and Tyler) in Lincoln in 2013; Hendricks did not make that shortlist. It would be nice to see the OBD funded project spur expansion from Mediacom and MVTV wireless too.
Just to help track progress, here are some recent stats on Lincoln County:
On broadband (Connect MN final stats from 2014):
- Household Density: 4.7
- Number of Households: 2,574
- Percentage serviced (without mobile): 40.90%
- Percentage serviced (with mobile): 40.90%
Census quick facts (from 2013):
- Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2009-2013: $86,100
- Per capita money income in past 12 months (2013 dollars), 2009-2013: $26,767
- Persons below poverty level, percent, 2009-2013: 8.7%
- Private nonfarm establishments, 2012: 209
- Private nonfarm employment, 2012: 1,598