2018 Minnesota Broadband County Profiles – from Aitkin to Yellow Medicine

In preparation for the 2018 Broadband Conference I have compiled the annual county profiles. For ranking I am using percentage of wired access to speeds of 100 Mbps up and 20 Mbps down – or the state speed goal for 2026. Last year I used wired and fixed wireless so there are some discrepancies although only for a handful of counties.

It’s always interesting to see who is gaining ground, who is losing ground and who is staying steady. Counties that get Minnesota broadband grants tend to be moving forward. There were a few other (USDA) grants that I think we’ll see have an impact next year.

Often I see the greatest leaps forward from the counties that know they are in trouble. There are a number of counties that were on the “10 worst served” list of 2010 that have managed to really turn it around. There are others that have pretty decent access to speeds of 25/3 but dismay access to 100/20. Those are the counties I often worry about – sort of like the student that’s just getting by. No one is feeling the pain but they will eventually. Then of course there are counties that know they are hurting and just haven’t been able to get traction for a solution.

Finally we really do have some awesome providers in the state. Many, but not all, are cooperatives. They are able to make the slow investment required when the population density is low. The return on that investment is often felt by the community before the provider – hopefully they are rewarded with more customers order more services.

Here are links to each county:

Blandin on Broadband

News and information on broadband use, policy, and trends

2018 Minnesota Broadband County Profiles – from Aitkin to Yellow Medicine

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